| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane: were now writhed into unholy contortions. He
swore by all possible deities.
Once he grabbed the youth by the arm.
"Come on, yeh lunkhead!" he roared. "Come
on! We'll all git killed if we stay here. We've
on'y got t' go across that lot. An' then"--the
remainder of his idea disappeared in a blue haze
of curses.
The youth stretched forth his arm. "Cross
there?" His mouth was puckered in doubt and
awe.
The Red Badge of Courage |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: recently the local paper had said (apropos of a gala) that, "Thanks to
the efforts of our Civil Governor, the town has become enriched with a
pleasaunce full of umbrageous, spaciously-branching trees. Even on the
most sultry day they afford agreeable shade, and indeed gratifying was
it to see the hearts of our citizens panting with an impulse of
gratitude as their eyes shed tears in recognition of all that their
Governor has done for them!"
Next, after inquiring of a gendarme as to the best ways and means of
finding the local council, the local law-courts, and the local
Governor, should he (Chichikov) have need of them, the gentleman went
on to inspect the river which ran through the town. En route he tore
Dead Souls |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: on whose immediate margin, high above our heads, the one tall
pine precariously nodded - these stood for its greatness;
while, the dog-hutch, boot-jacks, old boots, old tavern
bills, and the very beds that we inherited from bygone
miners, put in human touches and realized for us the story of
the past.
I have sat on an old sleeper, under the thick madronas near
the forge, with just a look over the dump on the green world
below, and seen the sun lying broad among the wreck, and
heard the silence broken only by the tinkling water in the
shaft, or a stir of the royal family about the battered
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