| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: door too stood open to that best friend of my work, the warm,
still sunshine of the wide fields. They lay around me infinitely
helpful, but truth to say I had not known for weeks whether the
sun shone upon the earth and whether the stars above still moved
on their appointed courses. I was just then giving up some days
of my allotted span to the last chapters of the novel "Nostromo,"
a tale of an imaginary (but true) seaboard, which is still
mentioned now and again, and indeed kindly, sometimes in
connection with the word "failure" and sometimes in conjunction
with the word "astonishing." I have no opinion on this
discrepancy. It's the sort of difference that can never be
Some Reminiscences |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: two or three big boxes, opened two quarts of the red wine, set the
olives and a canned oyster cocktail and a ready-made Martini by the
colonel's plate, and called him to grub.
Colonel Rockingham drew up his campstool, wiped off his specs, and
looked at the things on the table. Then I thought he was swearing; and
I felt mean because I hadn't taken more pains with the victuals. But
he wasn't; he was asking a blessing; and me and Caligula hung our
heads, and I saw a tear drop from the colonel's eye into his cocktail.
I never saw a man eat with so much earnestness and application--not
hastily, like a grammarian, or one of the canal, but slow and
appreciative, like a anaconda, or a real /vive bonjour/.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Under the Andes by Rex Stout: deafening echoes; it was as though the mountain had descended with
one tremendous crash into its own bowels.
As though by magic, the assault ceased.
The effect was indescribable. We could see nothing; we merely
became suddenly aware that there were no longer hands clutching at
our throats or hairy bodies crushing us to the ground. It was as
though the horde of unseen devils had melted into thin air. There
were movements on the ground, for many of them had been wounded; a
man cannot always reach the spot in the dark. This lasted for two
or three minutes; they were evidently removing those who still had
life in them, for the straining breath of men dragging or lifting
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