| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: this is an impression which is hardly to be believed at this
distance of years. What I am certain of is, that I was very far
from thinking of writing a story, though it is possible and even
likely that I was thinking of the man Almayer.
I had seen him for the first time some four years before from the
bridge of a steamer moored to a rickety little wharf forty miles
up, more or less, a Bornean river. It was very early morning and
a slight mist, an opaline mist as in Bessborough Gardens only
without the fiery flicks on roof and chimney-pot from the rays of
the red London sun, promised to turn presently into a woolly fog.
Barring a small dug-out canoe on the river there was nothing
Some Reminiscences |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: but, captious and vacillating, he treated us all with intolerable
alternations. We were always ignorant whether we were doing right or
whether he considered us to blame; and the horrible expectancy which
results from that is torture in domestic life. A street life seems
better than a home under such circumstances. Had I been alone in the
house I would have borne all from my father without murmuring; but my
heart was torn by the bitter, unceasing anguish of my dear mother,
whom I ardently loved and whose tears put me sometimes into a fury in
which I nearly lost my reason. My school days, when boys are usually
so full of misery and hard work, were to me a golden period. I dreaded
holidays. My mother herself preferred to come and see me. When I had
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Magic of Oz by L. Frank Baum: you forest people, but the Wizard wouldn't hurt a beast for anything."
"I don't mean the Wizard," explained the Wolf. "And if the Wizard
of Oz is that funny little man who rode a great Tiger into the
clearing, he's been transformed himself by the terrible Magician."
"The Wizard transformed? Why, that's impossible," declared the
Glass Cat.
"No; it isn't. I saw him with my own eyes, changed into the form of
a Fox, and the girl who was with him was changed to a woolly Lamb."
The Glass Cat was indeed surprised.
"When did that happen?" it asked.
"Just a little while ago in the clearing. All the animals had met
The Magic of Oz |
