| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Off on a Comet by Jules Verne: into a metallic dust of unrecognized composition, bore no trace
of the sponges, sea-anemones, star-fish, sea-nettles, hydrophytes,
and shells with which the submarine rocks of the Mediterranean
had hitherto been prodigally clothed.
The _Dobryna_ now put about and resumed her explorations in a
southerly direction. It remained, however, as remarkable as ever
how completely throughout the voyage the sea continued to be deserted;
all expectations of hailing a vessel bearing news from Europe were
entirely falsified, so that more and more each member of the crew began
to be conscious of his isolation, and to believe that the schooner,
like a second Noah's ark, carried the sole survivors of a calamity
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Professor by Charlotte Bronte: know not; two doors now closed between me and the CARRE.
Next day was appropriated to the first class; on my arrival, I
found the directress seated, as usual, in a chair between the two
estrades, and before her was standing Mdlle. Henri, in an
attitude (as it seemed to me) of somewhat reluctant attention.
The directress was knitting and talking at the same time. Amidst
the hum of a large school-room, it was easy so to speak in the
ear of one person, as to be heard by that person alone, and it
was thus Mdlle. Reuter parleyed with her teacher. The face of
the latter was a little flushed, not a little troubled; there was
vexation in it, whence resulting I know not, for the directress
The Professor |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: through which it would have been death to try to escape. All day the pom-
poms from the armoured trains, that paraded on the railway line nine miles
distant, could be heard at intervals; and at night the talk of the armed
natives as they pressed against the windows, and the tramp of the watch
with the endless "Who goes there?" as they walked round the wire fence
through the long, dark hours, when one was allowed neither to light a
candle nor strike a match. When a conflict was fought near by, the dying
and wounded were brought in; three men belonging to our little village were
led out to execution; death sentences were read in our little market-place;
our prison was filled with our fellow-countrymen; and we did not know from
hour to hour what the next would bring to any of us. Under these
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