| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: would not go in, so I tried to pull it out. It would not come out
either, and my gun was useless if I could not shut it to use the other
barrel. I might as well have had no gun.
"Meanwhile I was walking backward, keeping my eye on the lioness, who
was creeping forward on her belly without a sound, but lashing her tail
and keeping her eye on me; and in it I saw that she was coming in a few
seconds more. I dashed my wrist and the palm of my hand against the
brass rim of the cartridge till the blood poured from them--look, there
are the scars of it to this day!"
Here Quatermain held up his right hand to the light and showed us four
or five white cicatrices just where the wrist is set into the hand.
Long Odds |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: absolute and precise; nevertheless, had he been asked
his opinion, and especially if questioned in the down-
right, alarming manner of white men, he would have
displayed the hesitation of ignorance. He was certain
of his facts--but such a certitude counted for little
against the doubt what answer would be pleasing.
Fifty years ago, in a jungle village, and before he was
a day old, his father (who died without ever seeing
a white face) had had his nativity cast by a man of
skill and wisdom in astrology, because in the arrange-
ment of the stars may be read the last word of human
End of the Tether |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: comes. Lighten ship! Lively, now, lively, men! Heave the whole
cargo overboard!"
Peters, look me in the eye, and be calm. I found out, over there,
that a kazark is exactly the bulk of a HUNDRED AND SIXTY-NINE
WORLDS LIKE OURS! They hove all that load overboard. When it fell
it wiped out a considerable raft of stars just as clean as if
they'd been candles and somebody blowed them out. As for the race,
that was at an end. The minute she was lightened the comet swung
along by me the same as if I was anchored. The captain stood on
the stern, by the after-davits, and put his thumb to his nose and
sung out -
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