| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: evening, and the sympathy of this little circle of not unkindly
souls, it was perhaps natural that a character so susceptible as
Clifford's should become animated, and show itself readily
responsive to what was said around him. But he gave out his
own thoughts, likewise, with an airy and fanciful glow; so that
they glistened, as it were, through the arbor, and made their
escape among the interstices of the foliage. He had been as
cheerful, no doubt, while alone with Phoebe, but never with such
tokens of acute, although partial intelligence.
But, as the sunlight left the peaks of the Seven Gables, so did
the excitement fade out of Clifford's eyes. He gazed vaguely and
House of Seven Gables |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: devote my first free day to going and seeing my father and mother.
When I got to Yásnaya, my father had already left it.
I paid Aunt Masha a visit some little time after my father's
funeral. We sat together in her comfortable little cell, and she
repeated to me once more in detail the oft-repeated story of my
father's last visit to her.
"He sat in that very arm-chair where you are sitting now, and
how he cried!" she said.
"When Sasha arrived with her girl friend, they set to work
studying this map of Russia and planning out a route to the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: well for all the practical purposes of such an existence, but they
were no more capable of real intimacy than two animals feeding at the
same manger, under the same roof, in a luxurious stable. His longing
was appeased and became a habit; and she had her desire--the desire
to get away from under the paternal roof, to assert her individuality,
to move in her own set (so much smarter than the parental one); to
have a home of her own, and her own share of the world's respect,
envy, and applause. They understood each other warily, tacitly, like a
pair of cautious conspirators in a profitable plot; because they were
both unable to look at a fact, a sentiment, a principle, or a belief
otherwise than in the light of their own dignity, of their own
Tales of Unrest |
