| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: picturesque spot in Touraine. A fissure in the rock affords convenient
space for a flight of steps descending gradually to the "dike"--the
local name for the embankment made at the foot of the cliffs to keep
the Loire in its bed, and serve as a causeway for the highroad from
Paris to Nantes. At the top of the steps a gate opens upon a narrow
stony footpath between two terraces, for here the soil is banked up,
and walls are built to prevent landslips. These earthworks, as it
were, are crowned with trellises and espaliers, so that the steep path
that lies at the foot of the upper wall is almost hidden by the trees
that grow on the top of the lower, upon which it lies. The view of the
river widens out before you at every step as you climb to the house.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from To-morrow by Joseph Conrad: "Harry!"
Not even the dying echo of a footstep. Noth-
ing. The thundering of the surf, the voice of the
restless sea itself, seemed stopped. There was not
a sound--no whisper of life, as though she were
alone and lost in that stony country of which she
had heard, where madmen go looking for gold and
spurn the find.
Captain Hagberd, inside his dark house, had
kept on the alert. A window ran up; and in the
silence of the stony country a voice spoke above her
To-morrow |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie: and stuck his head in.
"There is a lady below, asking for Mr Hastings."
"A lady?"
I jumped up. Poirot followed me down the narrow stairs. Mary
Cavendish was standing in the doorway.
"I have been visiting an old woman in the village," she
explained, "and as Lawrence told me you were with Monsieur Poirot
I thought I would call for you."
"Alas, madame," said Poirot, "I thought you had come to honour me
with a visit!"
"I will some day, if you ask me," she promised him, smiling.
The Mysterious Affair at Styles |
