| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Emma by Jane Austen: will destroy it all--and it is my particular wish to do it
in your presence, that you may see how rational I am grown.
Cannot you guess what this parcel holds?" said she, with a conscious look.
"Not the least in the world.--Did he ever give you any thing?"
"No--I cannot call them gifts; but they are things that I have
valued very much."
She held the parcel towards her, and Emma read the words Most
precious treasures on the top. Her curiosity was greatly excited.
Harriet unfolded the parcel, and she looked on with impatience.
Within abundance of silver paper was a pretty little Tunbridge-ware box,
which Harriet opened: it was well lined with the softest cotton;
Emma |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: who paused in her rhythmic dance, placed her feet wide apart, and
without bending the knees, suddenly swayed her lithe body downward, so
that her chin touched the floor; and her whole audience,--the nomads,
accustomed to a life of privation and abstinence, the Roman soldiers,
expert in debaucheries, the avaricious publicans, and even the
crabbed, elderly priests--gazed upon her with dilated nostrils.
Next she began to whirl frantically around the table where Antipas the
tetrarch was seated. He leaned towards the flying figure, and in a
voice half choked with the voluptuous sighs of a mad desire, he
sighed: "Come to me! Come!" But she whirled on, while the music of
dulcimers swelled louder and the excited spectators roared their
Herodias |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Miracle Mongers and Their Methods by Harry Houdini: to fall on the hand it will be found that it is
still cool. The fact is that the water never
touches the hot iron at all, provided the heat
is sufficiently intense, but assumes a slightly
elliptical shape and is supported by a cushion
of vapor. If, instead of a flat-iron, we use a
concave metal disk about the size and shape
of a watch crystal, some very interesting results
may be obtained. If the temperature of
the disk is at, or slightly above, the boiling
point, water dropped on it from a medicine
Miracle Mongers and Their Methods |
