| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Miracle Mongers and Their Methods by Harry Houdini: sulphur and alum, which, by cauterising the
epidermis, hardened the skin to resist the
fire.
He put his hand into some melted lead,
took a small portion of it out, placed it in
his mouth, and then gave it in a solid state
to some of the company. This performance,
according to his account, was also
very easy; for he seized only a very small
particle, which, by a tight compression
between the forefinger and the thumb,
Miracle Mongers and Their Methods |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Adventure by Jack London: as he was half-way to his feet, while the five-score blacks surged
forward for the killing. Her revolver was out, and Carin-Jama let
go his grip, reeling backward with a bullet in his shoulder. In
that fleeting instant of action she had thought to shoot him in the
arm, which, at that short distance, might reasonably have been
achieved. But the wave of savages leaping forward had changed her
shot to the shoulder. It was a moment when not the slightest
chance could be taken.
The instant his throat was released, Sheldon struck out with his
fist, and Carin-Jama joined his brother on the ground. The mutiny
was quelled, and five minutes more saw the brothers being carried
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad: to do with all the villainous or splendid disguises human dust
takes upon itself? All this was in the past, and I was acutely
aware that for me there was no present, no future, nothing but a
hollow pain, a vain passion of such magnitude that being locked up
within my breast it gave me an illusion of lonely greatness with my
miserable head uplifted amongst the stars. But when I made up my
mind (which I did quickly, to be done with it) to call on the
banker's wife, almost the first thing she said to me was that the
Marquis de Villarel was "amongst us." She said it joyously. If in
her husband's room at the bank legitimism was a mere unpopulated
principle, in her salon Legitimacy was nothing but persons. "Il
The Arrow of Gold |
