| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: I have hoped against hope that it might be the men of
Helium headed by my Prince.
"And tell me, what of Carthoris, our son?"
"He was with me less than an hour since, Dejah Thoris,"
I replied. "It must have been he whose men you have heard
battling within the precincts of the temple.
"Where is Issus?" I asked suddenly.
Dejah Thoris shrugged her shoulders.
"She sent me under guard to this room just before the
fighting began within the temple halls. She said that she
would send for me later. She seemed very angry and somewhat
The Gods of Mars |
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: feigned--which I did not believe--or her unconsciousness was
indeed by artificial means.
"With this latter idea in my mind, I examined all the coffee-cups
most carefully, remembering that it was Mrs. Cavendish who had
brought Mademoiselle Cynthia her coffee the night before. I took
a sample from each cup, and had them analysed--with no result. I
had counted the cups carefully, in the event of one having been
removed. Six persons had taken coffee, and six cups were duly
found. I had to confess myself mistaken.
"Then I discovered that I had been guilty of a very grave
oversight. Coffee had been brought in for seven persons, not
The Mysterious Affair at Styles |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Silas Marner by George Eliot: asking herself continually whether she had been in any respect
blamable. This excessive rumination and self-questioning is perhaps
a morbid habit inevitable to a mind of much moral sensibility when
shut out from its due share of outward activity and of practical
claims on its affections--inevitable to a noble-hearted, childless
woman, when her lot is narrow. "I can do so little--have I done
it all well?" is the perpetually recurring thought; and there are
no voices calling her away from that soliloquy, no peremptory
demands to divert energy from vain regret or superfluous scruple.
There was one main thread of painful experience in Nancy's married
life, and on it hung certain deeply-felt scenes, which were the
Silas Marner |
