| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Astoria by Washington Irving: frequently climbing over sharp and rocky ridges that projected
into the stream. At length they had arrived to where the
mountains increased in height, and came closer to the river, with
perpendicular precipices, which rendered it impossible to keep
along the stream. The river here rushed with incredible velocity
through a defile not more than thirty yards wide, where cascades
and rapids succeeded each other almost without intermission. Even
had the opposite banks, therefore, been such as to permit a
continuance of their journey, it would have been madness to
attempt to pass the tumultuous current either on rafts or
otherwise. Still bent, however, on pushing forward, they
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane: altogether contemptible disposition.
She thought he must live in a blare of pleasure. He had friends,
and people who were afraid of him.
She saw the golden glitter of the place where Pete was to take
her. An entertainment of many hues and many melodies where she was
afraid she might appear small and mouse-colored.
Her mother drank whiskey all Friday morning. With lurid face
and tossing hair she cursed and destroyed furniture all Friday
afternoon. When Maggie came home at half-past six her mother lay
asleep amidst the wreck of chairs and a table. Fragments of
various household utensils were scattered about the floor.
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: somnolent, grinning Hodges will suddenly display activity of
body and finesse of mind. By their names ye may know them,
the women figuring as Loveina, Larsenia, Serena, Leanna,
Orreana; the men answering to Alvin, Alva, or Orion,
pronounced Orrion, with the accent on the first. Whether
they are indeed a race, or whether this is the form of
degeneracy common to all back-woodsmen, they are at least
known by a generic byword, as Poor Whites or Low-downers.
I will not say that the Hanson family was Poor White, because
the name savours of offence; but I may go as far as this -
they were, in many points, not unsimilar to the people
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