| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: the whale-boat, when thus hung in hangman's nooses; and, like the six
burghers of Calais before King Edward, the six men composing the crew
pull into the jaws of death, with a halter around every neck, as you
may say.
Perhaps a very little thought will now enable you to account for
those repeated whaling disasters--some few of which are casually
chronicled--of this man or that man being taken out of the boat by
the line, and lost. For, when the line is darting out, to be seated
then in the boat, is like being seated in the midst of the manifold
whizzings of a steam-engine in full play, when every flying beam, and
shaft, and wheel, is grazing you. It is worse; for you cannot sit
Moby Dick |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs: in upon me the urgent need I had for one. Those which I
had purloined at Phutra we had not been able to bring along
because their size precluded our concealing them within
the skins of the Mahars which had brought us safely from
the city.
With the shield slipped well up on my left arm I let fly
with another arrow, which brought down a second Sagoth,
and then as his fellow's hatchet sped toward me I caught
it upon the shield, and fitted another shaft for him;
but he did not wait to receive it. Instead, he turned and
retreated toward the main body of gorilla-men. Evidently he
At the Earth's Core |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: What was going to happen now? But as Miss Brill wondered, the ermine toque
turned, raised her hand as though she'd seen some one else, much nicer,
just over there, and pattered away. And the band changed again and played
more quickly, more gayly than ever, and the old couple on Miss Brill's seat
got up and marched away, and such a funny old man with long whiskers
hobbled along in time to the music and was nearly knocked over by four
girls walking abreast.
Oh, how fascinating it was! How she enjoyed it! How she loved sitting
here, watching it all! It was like a play. It was exactly like a play.
Who could believe the sky at the back wasn't painted? But it wasn't till a
little brown dog trotted on solemn and then slowly trotted off, like a
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