| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Last War: A World Set Free by H. G. Wells: St John's Wood to which my father went after his expulsion from
Russia.... That London of my memories seems to me like a place in
another world. For you younger people it must seem like a place
that could never have existed.'
'Is there much left standing?' asked Edith Haydon.
'Square miles that are scarcely shaken in the south and
north-west, they say; and most of the bridges and large areas of
dock. Westminster, which held most of the government offices,
suffered badly from the small bomb that destroyed the Parliament,
there are very few traces of the old thoroughfare of Whitehall or
the Government region thereabout, but there are plentiful
The Last War: A World Set Free |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: how did they murder him? Who did? In what way?
Byrne jumped up, snatched the lamp off the table, and stooped
swiftly over the body. The light revealed on the clothing no
stain, no trace, no spot of blood anywhere. Byrne's hands began to
shake so that he had to set the lamp on the floor and turn away his
head in order to recover from this agitation.
Then he began to explore that cold, still, and rigid body for a
stab, a gunshot wound, for the trace of some killing blow. He felt
all over the skull anxiously. It was whole. He slipped his hand
under the neck. It was unbroken. With terrified eyes he peered
close under the chin and saw no marks of strangulation on the
Within the Tides |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Adieu by Honore de Balzac: into a room on the lower floor where everything bore the marks of
capricious destruction. The silken curtains beside the windows were
torn, while those of muslin remained intact.
"You see," said the tall old man, as they entered, "the ravages
committed by that dear creature, to whom I devote myself. She is my
niece; in spite of the impotence of my art, I hope some day to restore
her reason by attempting a method which can only be employed,
unfortunately, by very rich people."
Then, like all persons living in solitude who are afflicted with an
ever present and ever renewed grief, he related to the marquis at
length the following narrative, which is here condensed, and relieved
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