| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: careful calculation and deep thought that the timbers were laid on the
keel.
Pencroft, as may be believed, was all eagerness to carry out his new
enterprise, and would not leave his work for an instant.
A single thing had the honor of drawing him, but for one day only, from
his dockyard. This was the second wheat-harvest, which was gathered in on
the 15th of April. It was as much a success as the first, and yielded the
number of grains which had been predicted.
"Five bushels, captain," said Pencroft, alter having scrupulously
measured his treasure.
"Five bushels," replied the engineer; "and a hundred and thirty thousand
The Mysterious Island |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy: well or little known bust by Nollekens--a mouth which is in itself
a young man's fortune, if properly exercised. His round chin,
where its upper part turned inward, still continued its perfect
and full curve, seeming to press in to a point the bottom of his
nether lip at their place of junction.
Once he murmured the name of Elfride. Ah, there she was! On the
lawn in a plain dress, without hat or bonnet, running with a boy's
velocity, superadded to a girl's lightness, after a tame rabbit
she was endeavouring to capture, her strategic intonations of
coaxing words alternating with desperate rushes so much out of
keeping with them, that the hollowness of such expressions was but
A Pair of Blue Eyes |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: The rehearsal began. Cesar, his wife, and Cesarine went out by the
shop-door and re-entered the house from the street. The entrance had
been remodelled in the grand style, with double doors, divided into
square panels, in the centre of which were architectural ornaments in
cast-iron, painted. This style of door, since become common in Paris,
was then a novelty. At the further end of the vestibule the staircase
went up in two straight flights, and between them was the space which
had given Cesar some uneasiness, and which was now converted into a
species of box, where it was possible to seat an old woman. The
vestibule, paved in black and white marble, with its walls painted to
resemble marble, was lighted by an antique lamp with four jets. The
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
