| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: the Fair Maid, together with the rest of the crew, after
the completion of the sale, he had hung, in his faded
blue suit and floppy gray hat, about the doors of the
Harbor Office, till one day, seeing Captain Whalley
coming along to get a crew for the Sofala, he had put
himself quietly in the way, with his bare feet in the dust
and an upward mute glance. The eyes of his old com-
mander had fallen on him favorably--it must have
been an auspicious day--and in less than half an hour
the white men in the "Ofiss" had written his name on
a document as Serang of the fire-ship Sofala. Since
End of the Tether |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: little life there was in her, and, it may be added, how little care to
live. This hapless outcast, this wild and wounded swallow, moved
Carlos Herrera to compassion for the second time. The gloomy minister,
whom God should have employed only to carry out His revenges, received
the sick girl with a smile, which expressed, indeed, as much
bitterness as sweetness, as much vengeance as charity. Esther,
practised in meditation, and used to revulsions of feeling since she
had led this almost monastic life, felt on her part, for the second
time, distrust of her protector; but, as on the former occasion, his
speech reassured her.
"Well, my dear child," said he, "and why have you never spoken to me
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Duchess of Padua by Oscar Wilde: SECOND SOLDIER
What matter? He will get sleep enough when he is buried. I
warrant he'd be glad if we could wake him when he's in the grave.
THIRD SOLDIER
Nay! for when he wakes there it will be judgment day.
SECOND SOLDIER
Ay, and he has done a grievous thing; for, look you, to murder one
of us who are but flesh and blood is a sin, and to kill a Duke goes
being near against the law.
FIRST SOLDIER
Well, well, he was a wicked Duke.
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