| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: though that was not its name. What to expect, he knew not;
for a man may live in dreams, and yet be unprepared for their
realisation. It was already with a certain pang of surprise
that he beheld the mansion, standing in the eye of day, a
solid among solids. The key, upon trial, readily opened the
front door; he entered that great house, a privileged
burglar; and, escorted by the echoes of desertion, rapidly
reviewed the empty chambers. Cats, servant, old lady, the
very marks of habitation, like writing on a slate, had been
in these few hours obliterated. He wandered from floor to
floor, and found the house of great extent; the kitchen
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: much to confide to the friend of my youth, that the character of
the "real gentleman" wasn't an attribute of the man I took such
pains for. Was this because I had already generalised to the point
of perceiving that women are really the unfastidious sex? I knew
at any rate that Gravener, already quite in view but still hungry
and frugal, had naturally enough more ambition than charity. He
had sharp aims for stray sovereigns, being in view most from the
tall steeple of Clockborough. His immediate ambition was to occupy
e lui seul the field of vision of that smokily-seeing city, and all
his movements and postures were calculated for the favouring angle.
The movement of the hand as to the pocket had thus to alternate
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott: more seldom their companion, being either a most unwilling
attendant upon the lessons of his tutor, or a forward volunteer
under the instructions of the foresters or grooms. As for the
Keeper, his mornings were spent in his study, maintaining
correspondences of all kinds, and balancing in his anxious mind
the various intelligence which he collected from every quarter
concerning the expected change of Scottish politics, and the
probable strength of the parties who were about to struggle for
power. At other times he busied himself about arranging, and
coutermanding, and then again arranging, the preparations which
he judged necessary for the reception of the Marquis of A----,
The Bride of Lammermoor |
