| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: years in Zululand would love to give for nothing in such company?
"Son Saduko, because my eye-holes are hollow, do you think it your part
to try to fill them up with dust? Nay, the white man has come because
he desires to see him who is named Opener-of-Roads, of whom he heard a
great deal when he was but a lad, and to judge whether in truth he has
wisdom, or is but a common cheat. And you have come to learn whether or
no your friendship with him will be fortunate; whether or no he will aid
you in a certain enterprise that you have in your mind."
"True, O Zikali," I said. "That is so far as I am concerned."
But Saduko answered nothing.
"Well," went on the dwarf, "since I am in the mood I will try to answer
Child of Storm |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Ebb-Tide by Stevenson & Osbourne: hesitation possible: it must be Attwater. And no sooner was
the thought formed (which was a sentence) than his whole
mind of man ran in a panic to the other side: and when he
looked within himself, he was aware only of turbulence and
inarticulate outcry.
In all this there was no thought of Robert Herrick. He had
complied with the ebb-tide in man's affairs, and the tide had
carried him away; he heard already the roaring of the maelstrom
that must hurry him under. And in his bedevilled and dishonoured
soul there was no thought of self.
For how long he walked silent by his companion Herrick had
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Heart of the West by O. Henry: Kentucky bays went for the horizon until it come sailing in so fast
you wanted to dodge it like a clothesline. Mame was full of talk and
rattled on like a kid about her old home and her school pranks and the
things she liked and the hateful ways of those Johnson girls just
across the street, 'way up in Indiana. Not a word was said about Ed
Collier or victuals or such solemn subjects. About noon Mame looks and
finds that the lunch she had put up in a basket had been left behind.
I could have managed quite a collation, but Mame didn't seem to be
grieving over nothing to eat, so I made no lamentations. It was a sore
subject with me, and I ruled provender in all its branches out of my
conversation.
Heart of the West |
