| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The People That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: certainly understood no word of what she said. All the time
the girl kept glancing toward the forest, and at last she
touched my arm and pointed in that direction.
Turning, I saw a hairy figure of a manlike thing standing
watching us, and presently another and another emerged from the
jungle and joined the leader until there must have been at
least twenty of them. They were entirely naked. Their bodies
were covered with hair, and though they stood upon their feet
without touching their hands to the ground, they had a very
ape-like appearance, since they stooped forward and had very
long arms and quite apish features. They were not pretty to
The People That Time Forgot |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: of your colleagues look back on the inertia of your Church, and the
intrusive and decisive heroism of Damien, with something almost to
be called remorse. I am sure it is so with yourself; I am
persuaded your letter was inspired by a certain envy, not
essentially ignoble, and the one human trait to be espied in that
performance. You were thinking of the lost chance, the past day;
of that which should have been conceived and was not; of the
service due and not rendered. TIME WAS, said the voice in your
ear, in your pleasant room, as you sat raging and writing; and if
the words written were base beyond parallel, the rage, I am happy
to repeat - it is the only compliment I shall pay you - the rage
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Schoolmistress and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov: After that all three go out of the room, and waking the sleeping
guard on the way, go on to the platform.
"What weather!" grumbles the head guard, shrugging his shoulders.
"You can't see your hand before your face."
"Yes, it's vile weather."
From the window they can see the flaxen head of the telegraph
clerk appear beside the green lamp and the telegraphic apparatus;
soon after another head, bearded and wearing a red cap, appears
beside it -- no doubt that of the station-master. The
station-master bends down to the table, reads something on a blue
form, rapidly passing his cigarette along the lines. . . .
The Schoolmistress and Other Stories |
