| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: And it was I that managed to set it for him. Anyway, he came.
When I had him in my cabin--he stood by the door looking
at me as if I had the halter round my neck already--
I asked him right away to leave my cabin door unlocked
at night while the ship was going through Sunda Straits.
There would be the Java coast within two or three miles,
off Angier Point. I wanted nothing more. I've had a prize
for swimming my second year in the Conway."
"I can believe it," I breathed out.
"God only knows why they locked me in every night.
To see some of their faces you'd have thought they
The Secret Sharer |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie: "Yes, it is Mrs. Inglethorp's. But what does it mean?"
Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
"I cannot say--but it is suggestive."
A wild idea flashed across me. Was it possible that Mrs.
Inglethorp's mind was deranged? Had she some fantastic idea of
demoniacal possession? And, if that were so, was it not also
possible that she might have taken her own life?
I was about to expound these theories to Poirot, when his own
words distracted me.
"Come," he said, "now to examine the coffee-cups!"
"My dear Poirot! What on earth is the good of that, now that we
The Mysterious Affair at Styles |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: from not having understood in time what was intended as to the waggons:
and one thing I have had to do, Mary, of a more trying nature:
going to almost every house in the parish, as a sort of take-leave.
I was told that they wished it. But all these things took up
a great deal of time."
"Oh! well!" and after a moment's pause, "but you have never asked me
one word about our dinner at the Pooles yesterday."
"Did you go then? I have made no enquiries, because I concluded
you must have been obliged to give up the party."
"Oh yes! I went. I was very well yesterday; nothing at all
the matter with me till this morning. It would have been strange
Persuasion |
