| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: roll shivering in a tramcar into the very heart of the town, past
clean-faced houses, past thousands of brass knockers upon a
thousand painted doors glimmering behind rows of trees of the
pavement species, leafless, gaunt, seemingly dead for ever.
That part of the expedition was easy enough, though the horses were
painfully glistening with icicles, and the aspect of the tram-
conductors' faces presented a repulsive blending of crimson and
purple. But as to frightening or bullying, or even wheedling some
sort of answer out of Mr. Hudig, that was another matter
altogether. He was a big, swarthy Netherlander, with black
moustaches and a bold glance. He always began by shoving me into a
The Mirror of the Sea |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: Only here and there, a despised one shrank away into a corner, and
tried to get a little quiet with a book, in the midst of the noise;
but all the practical ones thought of nothing else but counting
nail-heads all the afternoon--even though they knew they would not
be allowed to carry so much as one brass knob away with them. But
no--it was--"Who has most nails? I have a hundred, and you have
fifty; or, I have a thousand, and you have two. I must have as many
as you before I leave the house, or I cannot possibly go home in
peace." At last, they made so much noise that I awoke, and thought
to myself, "What a false dream that is, of CHILDREN!" The child is
the father of the man; and wiser. Children never do such foolish
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: bought a ticket. It was spring and summer since I had heard
anything like the colonel. The Missouri had not yet flowed into
New York dialect freely, and his vocabulary met me like the
breeze of the plains. So I went in to be fanned by it, and there
sat the Virginian at a table, alone.
His greeting was up to the code of indifference proper on the
plains; but he presently remarked, "I'm right glad to see
somebody," which was a good deal to say. "Them that comes hyeh,"
he observed next, "don't eat. They feed." And he considered the
guests with a sombre attention. "D' yu' reckon they find joyful
digestion in this swallo'-an'-get-out trough?"
The Virginian |
