| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Youth by Joseph Conrad: we had been born in her, reared in her, had lived in her
for ages, had never known any other ship. I would
just as soon have abused the old village church at home
for not being a cathedral.
"And for me there was also my youth to make me pa-
tient. There was all the East before me, and all life, and
the thought that I had been tried in that ship and had
come out pretty well. And I thought of men of old who,
centuries ago, went that road in ships that sailed no
better, to the land of palms, and spices, and yellow sands,
and of brown nations ruled by kings more cruel than
Youth |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: "The ideas I am trying to teach. The ideas you and I are
supposed to stand for." He paused a moment. "The ideas on which
our marriage was founded."
The blood rushed to her face. He had his reasons, then--she was
sure now that he had his reasons! In the ten years of their
marriage, how often had either of them stopped to consider the
ideas on which it was founded? How often does a man dig about
the basement of his house to examine its foundation? The
foundation is there, of course--the house rests on it--but one
lives abovestairs and not in the cellar. It was she, indeed, who
in the beginning had insisted on reviewing the situation now and
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: his motives could not be prompted by loyalty to his friend,
or regard for her honour.
And yet, as she saw him coming across the marble
floor of the audience chamber of Tario of Lothar,
his fine eyes filled with apprehension for her safety,
his splendid figure personifying all that is finest in the fighting
men of martial Mars, she could not believe that any faintest
trace of perfidy lurked beneath so glorious an exterior.
Never, she thought, in all her life had the sight of any
man been so welcome to her. It was with difficulty that
she refrained from rushing forward to meet him.
Thuvia, Maid of Mars |
