| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Options by O. Henry: spotted by wheeling vultures in the Mindanaoan wilds.
Truly, the life of the merry head-hunter captivated me. He had
reduced art and philosophy to a simple code. To take your adversary's
head, to basket it at the portal of your castle, to see it lying
there, a dead thing, with its cunning and stratagems and power gone--
Is there a better way to foil his plots, to refute his arguments, to
establish your superiority over his skill and wisdom?
The ship that brought me home was captained by an erratic Swede, who
changed his course and deposited me, with genuine compassion, in a
small town on the Pacific coast of one of the Central American
republics, a few hundred miles south of the port to which he had
Options |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Edition of The Ambassadors by Henry James: because he was maltreated or desperate; he wished to do everything
because he was lucid and quiet, just the same for himself on all
essential points as he had ever been. Thus it was that while he
virtually hung about for Chad he kept mutely putting it: "You've
been chucked, old boy; but what has that to do with it?" It would
have sickened him to feel vindictive.
These tints of feeling indeed were doubtless but the iridescence of
his idleness, and they were presently lost in a new light from
Maria. She had a fresh fact for him before the week was out, and
she practically met him with it on his appearing one night. He hadn't
on this day seen her, but had planned presenting himself in due course
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: side why their marriage should take place there had ceased
to be any worldly reason on his why it should be postponed,
since she had succeeded to fortune.
Tuesday was the great Candlemas fair. At breakfast she said
to Elizabeth-Jane quite coolly: "I imagine your father may
call to see you to-day. I suppose he stands close by in the
market-place with the rest of the corn-dealers?"
She shook her head. "He won't come."
"Why?"
"He has taken against me," she said in a husky voice.
"You have quarreled more deeply than I know of."
The Mayor of Casterbridge |
