| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: of the nakedness of the Judgment-Day? So it came before him,
his life, that night. The slow tides of pain he had borne
gathered themselves up and surged against his soul. His squalid
daily life, the brutal coarseness eating into his brain, as the
ashes into his skin: before, these things had been a dull
aching into his consciousness; to-night, they were reality. He
griped the filthy red shirt that clung, stiff with soot, about
him, and tore it savagely from his arm. The flesh beneath was
muddy with grease and ashes,--and the heart beneath that! And
the soul? God knows.
Then flashed before his vivid poetic sense the man who had left
Life in the Iron-Mills |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from McTeague by Frank Norris: his enemy, had run down the man for whom every officer in
the State had been looking. What should he do with him now?
He couldn't keep him standing there forever with his hands
over his head.
"Got any water?" he demanded.
"There's a canteen of water on the mule."
Marcus moved toward the mule and made as if to reach the
bridle-rein. The mule squealed, threw up his head, and
galloped to a little distance, rolling his eyes and
flattening his ears.
Marcus swore wrathfully.
McTeague |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Monster Men by Edgar Rice Burroughs: returned to the vessel, and a few minutes later von
Horn was chagrined to see them stepping a jury mast--
he thought the treasure lay in the Ithaca's cabin.
Before dark the vessel moved slowly out of the harbor,
setting a course across the strait in the direction
that the war prahus had taken. When it was apparent
that there was no danger that the head hunters would
return, the lascar came from his hiding place, and
dancing up and down upon the shore screamed warlike
challenges and taunts at the retreating enemy.
Von Horn also came forth, much to the sailor's
The Monster Men |
