| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz by L. Frank Baum: "Hello!" he said, seeing her, "are you Dorothy Gale?"
"Yes," she answered, looking gravely at his tousled hair and blinking
gray eyes. "Have you come to take me to Hugson's Ranch?"
"Of course," he answered. "Train in?"
"I couldn't be here if it wasn't," she said.
He laughed at that, and his laugh was merry and frank. Jumping out of
the buggy he put Dorothy's suit-case under the seat and her bird-cage
on the floor in front.
"Canary-birds?" he asked.
"Oh no; it's just Eureka, my kitten. I thought that was the best way
to carry her."
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: The steward reappeared suddenly in the doorway.
I jumped up from the couch so quickly that he gave a start.
"What do you want here?"
"Close your port, sir--they are washing decks."
"It is closed," I said, reddening.
"Very well, sir." But he did not move from the doorway and returned
my stare in an extraordinary, equivocal manner for a time.
Then his eyes wavered, all his expression changed, and in a voice
unusually gentle, almost coaxingly:
"May I come in to take the empty cup away, sir?"
"Of course!" I turned my back on him while he popped in and out.
The Secret Sharer |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: "How glad Madame would be to have him!"
The man had repeated this remark to his mistress who, not being able
to keep the bird, took this means of getting rid of it.
CHAPTER IV
He was called Loulou. His body was green, his head blue, the tips of
his wings were pink and his breast was golden.
But he had the tiresome tricks of biting his perch, pulling his
feathers out, scattering refuse and spilling the water of his bath.
Madame Aubain grew tired of him and gave him to Felicite for good.
She undertook his education, and soon he was able to repeat: "Pretty
boy! Your servant, sir! I salute you, Marie!" His perch was placed
A Simple Soul |
