| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: forget all the things I got to do."
It was nine o'clock--almost immediately afterward I looked at my watch
and found it was ten. Mr. McKee was asleep on a chair with his fists
clenched in his lap, like a photograph of a man of action. Taking out my
handkerchief I wiped from his cheek the remains of the spot of dried
lather that had worried me all the afternoon.
The little dog was sitting on the table looking with blind eyes through
the smoke, and from time to time groaning faintly. People disappeared,
reappeared, made plans to go somewhere, and then lost each other,
searched for each other, found each other a few feet away. Some time
toward midnight Tom Buchanan and Mrs. Wilson stood face to face
The Great Gatsby |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: me his tale. It is not worth while to record his version.
It was just over two months since all this had happened, and he had thought
so much about it that he seemed completely muddled as to its bearings,
but still immensely impressed.
"What would you think of such a thing happening on board your own ship?
I've had the Sephora for these fifteen years. I am a well-known shipmaster."
He was densely distressed--and perhaps I should have sympathized
with him if I had been able to detach my mental vision
from the unsuspected sharer of my cabin as though he were my
second self. There he was on the other side of the bulkhead,
four or five feet from us, no more, as we sat in the saloon.
The Secret Sharer |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: and advise that I should, but not if you think otherwise. I went to the
council chamber because I heard that the Council was about to choose some
one who was to speak over the dead. For you know that there is to be a
public funeral?
SOCRATES: Yes, I know. And whom did they choose?
MENEXENUS: No one; they delayed the election until tomorrow, but I believe
that either Archinus or Dion will be chosen.
SOCRATES: O Menexenus! Death in battle is certainly in many respects a
noble thing. The dead man gets a fine and costly funeral, although he may
have been poor, and an elaborate speech is made over him by a wise man who
has long ago prepared what he has to say, although he who is praised may
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