| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Heart of the West by O. Henry: demurely out of her gate in a thin, trim white lawn and sailor hat.
She strolled up the sidewalk and slowed her steps at Dry Valley's
gate, her manner expressing wonder at his unusual delinquency.
Then out of his door and down the walk strode--not the polychromatic
victim of a lost summertime, but the sheepman, rehabilitated. He wore
his old grey woolen shirt, open at the throat, his brown duck trousers
stuffed into his run-over boots, and his white felt sombrero on the
back of his head. Twenty years or fifty he might look; Dry Valley
cared not. His light blue eyes met Panchita's dark ones with a cold
flash in them. He came as far as the gate. He pointed with his long
arm to her house.
Heart of the West |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: new theory and formula of humanity. Attention, if you please."
"Attention!" said the fool, falling into position.
"Man's spoliation of man--by which I mean bodies of men living upon
the labor of other men--ought to have ceased with the coming of
Christ, I say CHRIST, who was sent to proclaim the equality of man in
the sight of God. But what is the fact? Equality up to our day has
been an 'ignus fatuus,' a chimera. Saint-Simon has arisen as the
complement of Christ; as the modern exponent of the doctrine of
equality, or rather of its practice, for theory has served its time--"
"Is he liberated?" asked the lunatic.
"Like liberalism, it has had its day. There is a nobler future before
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Adventure by Jack London: pointing out my duty to the contrary. The trouble was, all the
arguments were pointed with drinks, and me not being a drinking
man, so to say, and weak from fever . . .
"Well, anyway, at the end of the half-hour down she came again and
took a good squint at me. 'That'll do nicely,' I remember her
saying; and with that she took the whisky bottles and hove them
overside through the companionway. 'That's the last, she said to
the three soaks, 'till the Martha floats and you're back in Guvutu.
It'll be a long time between drinks.' And then she laughed.
"She looked at me and said--not to me, mind you, but to the soaks:
'It's time this worthy man went ashore'--me! worthy man! 'Fowler,'
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