| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane: occasions. He himself occupied a down-trodden position that
had a private but distinct element of grandeur in its isolation.
The most complete cases of aggravated idiocy were, to his mind,
rampant upon the front platforms of all the street cars. At first
his tongue strove with these beings, but he eventually was superior.
He became immured like an African cow. In him grew a majestic contempt
for those strings of street cars that followed him like intent bugs.
He fell into the habit, when starting on a long journey, of
fixing his eye on a high and distant object, commanding his horses
to begin, and then going into a sort of a trance of observation.
Multitudes of drivers might howl in his rear, and passengers might
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: from the possession of such a magnificent dependency.
The mere wealth I leave to others. Pardon my questions,
but you are the first Englishman coming under my observation .
. .' I hastened to assure him I was not in the least typical.
`If I were,' said I, `I wouldn't be talking like this with you.'
`What you say is rather profound, and probably erroneous,'
he said, with a laugh. `Avoid irritation more than exposure
to the sun. Adieu. How do you English say, eh? Good-bye. Ah!
Good-bye. Adieu. In the tropics one must before everything
keep calm.' . . . He lifted a warning forefinger.
. . . `DU CALME, DU CALME. ADIEU.'
Heart of Darkness |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac: regularly went to the Fenice, sitting in the pit-stalls, and between
the acts went round to Florian's, where he took three or four cups of
coffee a day; and he ended the evening at the cafe, never leaving it
till about two in the morning. Twelve hundred francs a year paid all
his expenses; he ate but one meal a day at an eating-house in the
Merceria, where the cook had his dinner ready for him at a fixed hour,
on a little table at the back of the shop; the pastry-cook's daughter
herself prepared his stuffed oysters, provided him with cigars, and
took care of his money. By his advice, this girl, though she was very
handsome, would never countenance a lover, lived very steadily, and
still wore the old Venetian costume. This purely-bred Venetian girl
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