| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: I took no notice of him and raised my tone just enough to be heard
by the helmsman.
"Keep her good full."
"Good full, sir."
The wind fanned my cheek, the sails slept, the world was silent.
The strain of watching the dark loom of the land grow bigger and denser
was too much for me. I had shut my eyes--because the ship must go closer.
She must! The stillness was intolerable. Were we standing still?
When I opened my eyes the second view started my heart with a thump.
The black southern hill of Koh-ring seemed to hang right over
the ship like a towering fragment of everlasting night.
The Secret Sharer |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Camille by Alexandre Dumas: "It would be good of God to let me see you again before I die.
According to all probability, good-bye, my friend. Pardon me if I
do not write a longer letter, but those who say they are going to
cure me wear me out with bloodletting, and my hand refuses to
write any more.
"MARGUERITE GAUTIER."
The last two words were scarcely legible. I returned the letter
to Armand, who had, no doubt, read it over again in his mind
while I was reading it on paper, for he said to me as he took it:
"Who would think that a kept woman could have written that?" And,
overcome by recollections, he gazed for some time at the writing
Camille |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: "When I supposed these stones were glass and this ivory bone,
the thing hadn't any interest for me because it hadn't any value,
and couldn't help me out of my trouble. But now--why, now it is
full of interest; yes, and of a sort to break a body's heart.
It's a bag of gold that has turned to dirt and ashes in my hands.
It could save me, and save me so easily, and yet I've got to go to ruin.
It's like drowning with a life preserver in my reach. All the hard luck
comes to me, and all the good luck goes to other people--
Pudd'nhead Wilson, for instance; even his career has got a sort of
a little start at last, and what has he done to deserve it,
I should like to know? Yes, he has opened his own road,
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