| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane: THE tattered man stood musing.
"Well, he was reg'lar jim-dandy fer nerve,
wa'n't he," said he finally in a little awestruck
voice. "A reg'lar jim-dandy." He thoughtfully
poked one of the docile hands with his foot. "I
wonner where he got 'is stren'th from? I never
seen a man do like that before. It was a funny
thing. Well, he was a reg'lar jim-dandy."
The youth desired to screech out his grief.
He was stabbed, but his tongue lay dead in the
tomb of his mouth. He threw himself again
The Red Badge of Courage |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: and behind a book and look languid just in time to save my reputation.
And why not? It is not graceful, and it makes one hot; but it
is a blessed sort of work, and if Eve had had a spade in Paradise
and known what to do with it, we should not have had all that sad
business of the apple.
What a happy woman I am living in a garden, with books,
babies, birds, and flowers, and plenty of leisure to enjoy them!
Yet my town acquaintances look upon it as imprisonment, and burying,
and I don't know what besides, and would rend the air with their shrieks
if condemned to such a life. Sometimes I feel as if I were blest
above all my fellows in being able to find my happiness so easily.
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: forget where he was. And, besides, that sense of superiority which
the certitude of being loved gives to a young man, that illusion of
being set above the Fates by a tender look in a woman's eyes,
helped him, the first shock over, to go through these experiences
with an amused self-confidence. For what evil could touch the
elect of Freya?
It was now afternoon, the sun being behind the two vessels as they
headed for the harbour. "The beetle's little joke shall soon be
over," thought Jasper, without any great animosity. As a seaman
well acquainted with that part of the world, a casual glance was
enough to tell him what was being done. "Hallo," he thought, "he
'Twixt Land & Sea |
