| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells: If every swindler was locked up--well, you'd have nowhere to buy
tape and cotton. It's all very well to bring up Burns and those
chaps, but I'm not that make. Yet I'm not such muck that I might
not have been better--with teaching. I wonder what the chaps who
sneer and laugh at such as me would be if they'd been fooled
about as I've been. At twenty-three--it's a long start."
He looked up with a wintry smile, a sadder and wiser Hoopdriver
indeed than him of the glorious imaginings. "It's YOU done this,"
he said. "You're real. And it sets me thinking what I really am,
and what I might have been. Suppose it was all different--"
"MAKE it different."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: my fate is nearly fulfilled. I wait but for one event, and then I
shall repose in peace. I understand your feeling," continued he,
perceiving that I wished to interrupt him; "but you are mistaken,
my friend, if thus you will allow me to name you; nothing can alter
my destiny; listen to my history, and you will perceive how
irrevocably it is determined."
He then told me that he would commence his narrative the next day when
I should be at leisure. This promise drew from me the warmest thanks.
I have resolved every night, when I am not imperatively occupied
by my duties, to record, as nearly as possible in his own words,
what he has related during the day. If I should be engaged,
Frankenstein |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: "Wherefore are you sad?" inquired the poet.
"Because," replied Ernest, "all through life I have awaited the
fulfilment of a prophecy; and, when I read these poems, I hoped
that it might be fulfilled in you."
"You hoped," answered the poet, faintly smiling, "to find in me
the likeness of the Great Stone Face. And you are disappointed,
as formerly with Mr. Gathergold, and Old Blood-and-Thunder, and
Old Stony Phiz. Yes, Ernest, it is my doom. You must add my name
to the illustrious three, and record another failure of your
hopes. For--in shame and sadness do I speak it, Ernest--I am not
worthy to be typified by yonder benign and majestic image."
The Snow Image |
