| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: benefit of the mails. Even now, all he proposed to do was to send
bread to Anderson and his hungry soldiers. His prudent policy
placed them where, as he had told them, they could have no war
unless they themselves chose to begin it.
They did choose to begin it. The rebellion was the work of
ambitious men, who had no mind to stop at that late day and see
their labor go for nothing. The officer in charge of their
batteries was ordered to open fire on Fort Sumter if Anderson
refused to surrender; and in the dim light of dawn on April 12,
1861, just as the outline of Fort Sumter began to show itself
against a brightening sky, the shot that opened the Civil War
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: However, it was enough for the horrid, frost-bound sensation
which had gripped me about the chest to pass off.
The moment of vain exclamations was past, too. I only climbed
on the spare spar and leaned over the rail as far as I could,
to bring my eyes nearer to that mystery floating alongside.
As he hung by the ladder, like a resting swimmer, the sea
lightning played about his limbs at every stir; and he appeared
in it ghastly, silvery, fishlike. He remained as mute as
a fish, too. He made no motion to get out of the water, either.
It was inconceivable that he should not attempt to come on board,
and strangely troubling to suspect that perhaps he did not want to.
The Secret Sharer |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Finished by H. Rider Haggard: as the night is so hot I shall take my nap on the stoep, there,
just opposite your window. No, don't let us talk any more now.
There will be plenty of time for that to-morrow."
She rose, looked at Anscombe, looked at me, looked at her father
very pitifully; then with a little exclamation of despair passed
into her room by the French window, where presently I heard her
call the native maid and tell her that she was to sleep with her.
Marnham watched her depart. Then he too went with his head bowed
and staggering a little in his walk. Next Anscombe rose and
limped off into his room, I following him.
"Well, young man," I said, "you have put us all in the soup now
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