| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Master of the World by Jules Verne: he seated himself at the stern without altering the course of the
"Terror."
A quarter of an hour later, I could see plainly that there were two
smoke clouds at the point they had studied so carefully. Little by
little the black spots beneath these became more defined. They were
two long, low steamers, which, coming from the port of Buffalo, were
approaching rapidly.
Suddenly it struck me that these were the two torpedo destroyers of
which Mr. Ward had spoken, and which I had been told to summon in
case of need.
These destroyers were of the newest type, the swiftest boats yet
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: ineffectual hand, and tries the frame. All safe! But is that a
smile?--is it not, rather a frown of deadly import, that darkens
over the shadow of his features? The stout Colonel is dissatisfied!
So decided is his look of discontent as to impart additional
distinctness to his features; through which, nevertheless, the
moonlight passes, and flickers on the wall beyond. Something has
strangely vexed the ancestor! With a grim shake of the head, he
turns away. Here come other Pyncheons, the whole tribe, in their
half a dozen generations, jostling and elbowing one another, to
reach the picture. We behold aged men and grandames, a clergyman
with the Puritanic stiffness still in his garb and mien, and a
House of Seven Gables |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: her. (He had been killed by the splinter of a shell instantly, she
bethought her.) The kitchen table was something visionary, austere;
something bare, hard, not ornamental. There was no colour to it; it
was all edges and angles; it was uncompromisingly plain. But Mr Ramsay
kept always his eyes fixed upon it, never allowed himself to be
distracted or deluded, until his face became worn too and ascetic and
partook of this unornamented beauty which so deeply impressed her.
Then, she recalled (standing where he had left her, holding her brush),
worries had fretted it--not so nobly. He must have had his doubts
about that table, she supposed; whether the table was a real table;
whether it was worth the time he gave to it; whether he was able after
To the Lighthouse |
