| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather: with a whimsical smile the slanting street,
with its worn paving, its irregular, gravely
colored houses, and the row of naked trees on
which the thin sunlight was still shining.
The gleam of the river at the foot of the hill
made him blink a little, not so much because it
was too bright as because he found it so pleasant.
The few passers-by glanced at him unconcernedly,
and even the children who hurried along with their
school-bags under their arms seemed to find it
perfectly natural that a tall brown gentleman
Alexander's Bridge |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Youth by Joseph Conrad: istinctly surprising. I suppose I expected to see them
convulsed with horror. . . . Pass the bottle.
"There was a voice hailing the ship from somewhere
--in the air, in the sky--I couldn't tell. Presently I
saw the captain--and he was mad. He asked me eagerly,
'Where's the cabin-table?' and to hear such a question
was a frightful shock. I had just been blown up, you
understand, and vibrated with that experience,--I wasn't
quite sure whether I was alive. Mahon began to stamp
with both feet and yelled at him, 'Good God! don't you
see the deck's blown out of her?' I found my voice, and
Youth |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: Guatemoc himself who told me of this sacrilege, but not with any
exultation, for I had taught him something of our faith, and though
he was too sturdy a heathen to change his creed, in secret he
believed that the God of the Christians was a true and mighty God.
Moreover, though he was obliged to countenance them, because of the
power of the priests, like Otomie, Guatemoc never loved the horrid
rites of human sacrifice.
Now when I heard this tale my anger overcame my reason, and I spoke
fiercely, saying:
'I am sworn to your cause, Guatemoc, my brother, and I am married
to your blood, but I tell you that from this hour it is an accursed
Montezuma's Daughter |
