| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: seen young Sanders handling. Thinks I, he's dropped it, and I was
still calling him this kind of fool and that--for it might have hurt
me serious--when I began to lift and drive up towards the daylight.
Just about the level of the top spars of the Ocean Pioneer, whack!
I came against something sinking down, and a boot knocked in front
of my helmet. Then something else, struggling frightful. It was
a big weight atop of me, whatever it was, and moving and twisting
about. I'd have thought it a big octopus, or some such thing, if it
hadn't been for the boot. But octopuses don't wear boots. It was
all in a moment, of course. I felt myself sinking down again, and
I threw my arms about to keep steady, and the whole lot rolled
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: Tourangian; if he yielded sometimes to the native idleness of his
birthplace, it was counterbalanced by his desire to make his fortune;
if he lacked cleverness and education, he possessed an instinctive
rectitude and delicate feelings, which he inherited from his mother,--
a being who had, in Tourangian phrase, a "heart of gold." Cesar
received from the Ragons his food, six francs a month as wages, and a
pallet to sleep upon in the garret near the cook. The clerks who
taught him to pack the goods, to do the errands, and sweep up the shop
and the pavement, made fun of him as they did so, according to the
manners and customs of shop-keeping, in which chaff is a principal
element of instruction. Monsieur and Madame Ragon spoke to him like a
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Death of the Lion by Henry James: Mrs. Wimbush. The privilege was withheld indeed from Dora Forbes;
so Mrs. Wimbush kept her latest capture temporarily concealed.
This was so little, however, her usual way of dealing with her
eminent friends that a couple of days of it exhausted her patience,
and she went up to town with him in great publicity. The sudden
turn for the worse her afflicted guest had, after a brief
improvement, taken on the third night raised an obstacle to her
seeing him before her retreat; a fortunate circumstance doubtless,
for she was fundamentally disappointed in him. This was not the
kind of performance for which she had invited him to Prestidge, let
alone invited the Princess. I must add that none of the generous
|
