| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: relationship in the same continent between the dead and
the living, will, I do not doubt, hereafter throw more light
on the appearance of organic beings on our earth, and their
disappearance from it, than any other class of facts.
It is impossible to reflect on the changed state of the
American continent without the deepest astonishment. Formerly
it must have swarmed with great monsters: now we
find mere pigmies, compared with the antecedent, allied
races. If Buffon had known of the gigantic sloth and
armadillo-like animals, and of the lost Pachydermata, he might
have said with a greater semblance of truth that the creative
The Voyage of the Beagle |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: Mercury, and mounted on the back of a ragged, wild, half-broken
colt, which he managed with a rope by way of halter. He came
clattering up to the school-door with an invitation to Ichabod to
attend a merry - making or "quilting-frolic," to be held that
evening at Mynheer Van Tassel's; and having, delivered his
message with that air of importance and effort at fine language
which a negro is apt to display on petty embassies of the kind,
he dashed over the brook, and was seen scampering, away up the
Hollow, full of the importance and hurry of his mission.
All was now bustle and hubbub in the late quiet schoolroom.
The scholars were hurried through their lessons without stopping
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: was still bright, and there was an odor of scorched leather through
the room, from Hotchkiss' shoes. The little detective was sound
asleep, his dead pipe in his fingers. The cat sat back on its
haunches and wailed.
The curtain at the door into the hallway bellied slowly out into
the room and fell again. The cat looked toward it and opened its
mouth for another howl. I thrust at it with my foot, but it
refused to move. Hotchkiss stirred uneasily, and his pipe
clattered to the floor.
The cat was standing at my feet, staring behind me. Apparently it
was following with its eyes, an object unseen to me, that moved
The Man in Lower Ten |
