| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce: the centre of his own grain-field, set the tow on fire and let the
animal go.
"Alas!" said the Farmer, seeing the result; "if that grain had not
been heavily insured, I might have had to dissemble my hatred of
the Fox."
Dame Fortune and the Traveller
A WEARY Traveller who had lain down and fallen asleep on the brink
of a deep well was discovered by Dame Fortune.
"If this fool," she said, "should have an uneasy dream and roll
into the well men would say that I did it. It is painful to me to
be unjustly accused, and I shall see that I am not."
Fantastic Fables |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: there, and neither earlier nor later, for it is the history of
this crisis and its consequences that this novel has to tell.
She had a compartment to herself in the train from London to
Morningside Park, and she sat with both her feet on the seat in
an attitude that would certainly have distressed her mother to
see, and horrified her grandmother beyond measure; she sat with
her knees up to her chin and her hands clasped before them, and
she was so lost in thought that she discovered with a start, from
a lettered lamp, that she was at Morningside Park, and thought
she was moving out of the station, whereas she was only moving
in. "Lord!" she said. She jumped up at once, caught up a
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: feelings, smiles much when he is alone, and develops a habit
of looking rather blankly upon the moon and stars. But it is
not at all within the province of a prose essayist to give a
picture of this hyperbolical frame of mind; and the thing has
been done already, and that to admiration. In ADELAIDE, in
Tennyson's MAUD, and in some of Heine's songs, you get the
absolute expression of this midsummer spirit. Romeo and
Juliet were very much in love; although they tell me some
German critics are of a different opinion, probably the same
who would have us think Mercutio a dull fellow. Poor Antony
was in love, and no mistake. That lay figure Marius, in LES
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