| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber: the weeks went on, the quick, light step began to lag a little.
He had lost more than a son; his right-hand helper was gone.
There were no farm helpers to be had. Old Ben couldn't do it
all. A touch of rheumatism that winter half crippled him for
eight weeks. Bella's voice seemed never to stop its plaint.
"There ain't no sense in you trying to make out alone. Next
thing you'll die on me, and then I'll have the whole shebang on
my hands." At that he eyed her dumbly from his chair by the
stove. His resistance was wearing down. He knew it. He wasn't
dying. He knew that, too. But something in him was. Something
that had resisted her all these years. Something that had made
One Basket |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Princess of Parms by Edgar Rice Burroughs: fury of a young tigress and struck something from her
upraised hand; something which flashed in the sunlight as
it spun to the ground. Then I knew what had blinded me at
that crucial moment of the fight, and how Sarkoja had found
a way to kill me without herself delivering the final thrust.
Another thing I saw, too, which almost lost my life for me
then and there, for it took my mind for the fraction of an
instant entirely from my antagonist; for, as Dejah Thoris
struck the tiny mirror from her hand, Sarkoja, her face livid
with hatred and baffled rage, whipped out her dagger and
aimed a terrific blow at Dejah Thoris; and then Sola, our dear
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: Rhine, the Lake of Constance,--in fact, it was a memorable
holiday of travel. Of late we had been tramping slowly up the
Valley of the Reuss. It was a delightful time. It was much more
like a stroll than a tramp. Landing from a Lake of Lucerne
steamer in Fluelen, we found ourselves at the end of the second
day, with the dusk overtaking our leisurely footsteps, a little
way beyond Hospenthal. This is not the day on which the remark
was made: in the shadows of the deep valley and with the
habitations of men left some way behind, our thoughts ran not
upon the ethics of conduct, but upon the simpler human problem of
shelter and food. There did not seem anything of the kind in
A Personal Record |
