| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: you'll tell me into what port you wish me to take
the ship and I'll do it."
The old man gave him a look of savage spite,
and said those atrocious words in deadly, slow
tones.
"If I had my wish, neither the ship nor any of
you would ever reach a port. And I hope you
won't."
Mr. Burns was profoundly shocked. I believe
he was positively frightened at the time. It seems,
however, that he managed to produce such an
The Shadow Line |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: CHAPTER III
The little newspaper which Aleck had subscribed for was a Thursday sheet;
it would make the trip of five hundred miles from Tilbury's village
and arrive on Saturday. Tilbury's letter had started on Friday,
more than a day too late for the benefactor to die and get into
that week's issue, but in plenty of time to make connection for the
next output. Thus the Fosters had to wait almost a complete week to
find out whether anything of a satisfactory nature had happened to him
or not. It was a long, long week, and the strain was a heavy one.
The pair could hardly have borne it if their minds had not had the
relief of wholesome diversion. We have seen that they had that.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: Yes--I could just manage to see it--the first portrait of Jack's
I had ever had to strain my eyes over! Usually they had the
place of honour--say the central panel in a pale yellow or rose
Dubarry drawing-room, or a monumental easel placed so that it
took the light through curtains of old Venetian point. The more
modest place became the picture better; yet, as my eyes grew
accustomed to the half-light, all the characteristic qualities
came out--all the hesitations disguised as audacities, the tricks
of prestidigitation by which, with such consummate skill, he
managed to divert attention from the real business of the picture
to some pretty irrelevance of detail. Mrs. Gisburn, presenting a
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