| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: right arm was extended, as if pointing onward. The face of this
wonderful statue, though not angry or forbidding, was so grave
and majestic, that perhaps you might call it severe; and as for
the mouth, it seemed just ready to unclose its lips, and utter
words of the deepest wisdom.
Jason was delighted with the oaken image, and gave the carver
no rest until it was completed, and set up where a figure-head
has always stood, from that time to this, in the vessel's prow.
"And now," cried he, as he stood gazing at the calm, majestic
face of the statue, "I must go to the Talking Oak and inquire
what next to do."
Tanglewood Tales |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: advice.
He gripped my extended arm warmly, and the
end of our acquaintance came suddenly in the
words: "Good-night."
That was all he said: "Good-night." Nothing
more. I don't know what I intended to say, but
surprise made me swallow it, whatever it was. I
choked slightly, and then exclaimed with a sort of
nervous haste: "Oh! Good-night, Captain Giles,
good-night."
His movements were always deliberate, but his
The Shadow Line |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson: a dearth of likelihood in the details, and such a weak and crazy
swagger in the delivery, as disposed me rather to pity than to
believe him.
I asked him of the brig (which he declared was the finest ship
that sailed) and of Captain Hoseason, in whose praises he was
equally loud. Heasyoasy (for so he still named the skipper) was
a man, by his account, that minded for nothing either in heaven
or earth; one that, as people said, would "crack on all sail into
the day of judgment;" rough, fierce, unscrupulous, and brutal;
and all this my poor cabin-boy had taught himself to admire as
something seamanlike and manly. He would only admit one flaw in
Kidnapped |
