| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: seen British colours in this port! and the man that sails under
them has got to drink that beer."
The proposal struck the public mind as fair, though far from
cheering; for some time back, indeed, the very name of beer
had been a sound of sorrow in the club, and the evenings had
passed in dolorous computation.
"Here is Havens," said one, as if welcoming a fresh topic.
"What do you think of her, Havens?"
"I don't think," replied Havens, a tall, bland, cool-looking,
leisurely Englishman, attired in spotless duck, and deliberately
dealing with a cigarette. "I may say I know. She's consigned
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: I make 'em up in spring weather when it's warm there in the barn.
No; I ain't one o' them that likes to set an' do nothin'."
"You see the rugs, poor dear did them; she wa'n't very partial
to knittin'," old Elijah went on, after he had counted his
stitches. "Our rugs is beginnin' to show wear, but I can't master
none o' them womanish tricks. My sister, she tinkers 'em up. She
said last time she was here that she guessed they'd last my time."
"The old ones are always the prettiest," I said.
"You ain't referrin' to the braided ones now?" answered Mr.
Tilley. "You see ours is braided for the most part, an' their good
looks is all in the beginnin'. Poor dear used to say they made an
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: While the mate was getting the hammer, Ahab, without speaking, was
slowly rubbing the gold piece against the skirts of his jacket, as if
to heighten its lustre, and without using any words was meanwhile
lowly humming to himself, producing a sound so strangely muffled and
inarticulate that it seemed the mechanical humming of the wheels of
his vitality in him.
Receiving the top-maul from Starbuck, he advanced towards the
main-mast with the hammer uplifted in one hand, exhibiting the gold
with the other, and with a high raised voice exclaiming: "Whosoever
of ye raises me a white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and a
crooked jaw; whosoever of ye raises me that white-headed whale, with
Moby Dick |
