| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: "The betting is on the Americans."
"They don't last, I am told," muttered his uncle.
"A long engagement exhausts them, but they are capital at a steeplechase.
They take things flying. I don't think Dartmoor has a chance."
"Who are her people?" grumbled the old gentleman. "Has she got any?"
Lord Henry shook his head. "American girls are as clever at concealing
their parents, as English women are at concealing their past," he said,
rising to go.
"They are pork-packers, I suppose?"
"I hope so, Uncle George, for Dartmoor's sake. I am told
that pork-packing is the most lucrative profession in America,
The Picture of Dorian Gray |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Burning Daylight by Jack London: He stood upon the chairs, squatted, and bent his shoulders down
till his hands closed on the rope. He shifted his feet slightly,
tautened his muscles with a tentative pull, then relaxed again,
questing for a perfect adjustment of all the levers of his body.
French Louis, looking on sceptically, cried out,
"Pool lak hell, Daylight! Pool lak hell!"
Daylight's muscles tautened a second time, and this time in
earnest, until steadily all the energy of his splendid body was
applied, and quite imperceptibly, without jerk or strain, the
bulky nine hundred pounds rose from the door and swung back and
forth, pendulum like, between his legs.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Master of the World by Jules Verne: whose waters might be upheaved and overflow! With the earth itself
threatening to disappear from under the feet of the fugitives! Would
they be in time to save themselves, if a cascade of glowing lava came
rolling down the slope of the mountain across their route?
Nevertheless, some of the chief and shrewder farm owners were not
swept away in this mad flight, which they did their best to restrain.
Venturing within a mile of the mountain, they saw that the glare of
the flames was decreasing. In truth it hardly seemed that the region
was immediately menaced by any further upheaval. No stones were being
hurled into space; no torrent of lava was visible upon the slopes; no
rumblings rose from the ground. There was no further manifestation of
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