| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: "Who's that?" he whispered then.
"My second mate. But I don't know much more of the fellow than you do."
And I told him a little about myself. I had been appointed to take
charge while I least expected anything of the sort, not quite
a fortnight ago. I didn't know either the ship or the people.
Hadn't had the time in port to look about me or size anybody up.
And as to the crew, all they knew was that I was appointed to take
the ship home. For the rest, I was almost as much of a stranger on
board as himself, I said. And at the moment I felt it most acutely.
I felt that it would take very little to make me a suspect person
in the eyes of the ship's company.
The Secret Sharer |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Crisis in Russia by Arthur Ransome: wagons will provide an outlet. Timber can be floated down
the rivers. Yes, but it must be brought to the rivers. Surely
horses can do that. Yes, but, horses must be fed, and oats
do not grow in the forests. For example, this spring (1920)
the best organized timber production was in Perm
Government. There sixteen thousand horses have been
mobilized for the work, but further development is
impossible for lack of forage. A telegram bitterly reports,
"Two trains of oats from Ekaterinburg are expected day by
day. If the oats arrive in time a considerable success will be
possible." And if the oats do not arrive in time? Besides, not
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave by Frederick Douglass: during this interval, a great change had taken place
in Master Hugh and his once kind and affectionate
wife. The influence of brandy upon him, and of
slavery upon her, had effected a disastrous change
in the characters of both; so that, as far as they
were concerned, I thought I had little to lose by the
change. But it was not to them that I was attached.
It was to those little Baltimore boys that I felt the
strongest attachment. I had received many good
lessons from them, and was still receiving them, and
the thought of leaving them was painful indeed. I
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave |
