| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle: tempted by the government authorities to enter into privateering
in the days of the late war. He conceded that Captain Scarfield
had done many cruel and wicked deeds, but he averred that he had
also performed many kind and benevolent actions. The world made
no note of these latter, but took care only to condemn the evil
that had been done. He acknowledged that it was true that the
pirate had allowed his crew to cast lots for the wife and the
daughter of the skipper of the Northern Rose, but there were none
of his accusers who told how, at the risk of his own life and the
lives of all his crew, he had given succor to the schooner
Halifax, found adrift with all hands down with yellow fever.
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: side with his face in his hands, raised his head and began to speak
with a sort of sombre volubility. They had lost their masts and
sprung a leak in a hurricane; drifted for weeks, always at the
pumps, met more bad weather; the ships they sighted failed to make
them out, the leak gained upon them slowly, and the seas had left
them nothing to make a raft of. It was very hard to see ship after
ship pass by at a distance, "as if everybody had agreed that we
must be left to drown," he added. But they went on trying to keep
the brig afloat as long as possible, and working the pumps
constantly on insufficient food, mostly raw, till "yesterday
evening," he continued monotonously, "just as the sun went down,
The Mirror of the Sea |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Where There's A Will by Mary Roberts Rinehart: right on the train to Salem, Ohio, but if he had they'd lost the
trail there, and anyhow, with the railroad service tied up by the
storm there wasn't much chance of his getting to Finleyville in
time.
Luckily Mr. Stitt was in bed with a mustard leaf over his stomach
and ice on his head, and didn't know whether it was night or
morning. But Thoburn was going around with a watch in his hand,
and Mr. Sam was for killing him and burying the body in the snow.
At half past five I just about gave up. I was sitting in front
of the fire wondering why I'd taken influenza the spring before
from getting my feet wet in a shower, when I had been standing in
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