| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lost Continent by Edgar Rice Burroughs: "Let us inquire," he said in a smooth, pleasant voice, "why
this young woman refuses to do homage to her sovereign," and
he put the question himself directly to her.
She answered him in Abyssinian, but brokenly and with an
accent that betrayed how recently she had acquired her
slight knowledge of the tongue.
"I go on my knees to no one," she said. "I have no
sovereign. I myself am sovereign in my own country."
Menelek, at her words, leaned back in his throne and laughed
uproariously. Following his example, which seemed always
the correct procedure, the assembled guests vied with one
Lost Continent |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela: pausing a moment in her work to push a mop of hair
back from over her sweaty forehead. Then, plunging
her two hands into a mass of corn, she removed a hand-
ful of it dripping with muddy yellowish water. "I've none
at all; you'd better go to Dolores, she's always got herbs,
you know."
"But Dolores went to Cofradia last night. I don't
know, but they say they came to fetch her to help Uncle
Matias' girl who's big with child."
"You don't say, Panchita?"
The three old women came together forming an ani-
The Underdogs |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: the sea the water was quite purple and dark blue, and grey and thick, and
no longer so green and yellow, but it was still quiet. And he stood there
and said--"
Mrs Ramsay could have wished that her husband had not chosen that moment
to stop. Why had he not gone as he said to watch the children playing
cricket? But he did not speak; he looked; he nodded; he approved; he went
on. He slipped, seeing before him that hedge which had over and over
again rounded some pause, signified some conclusion, seeing his wife and
child, seeing again the urns with the trailing of red geraniums which had
so often decorated processes of thought, and bore, written up among their
leaves, as if they were scraps of paper on which one scribbles notes in
To the Lighthouse |
