| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Dust by Mr. And Mrs. Haldeman-Julius: the open Kansas prairie; it lay, a thin veil on the scrawny black
horses and the sharp-boned cow picketed near a covered wagon; it
showered to the ground in little clouds as Mrs. Wade, a tall,
spare woman, moved about a camp-fire, preparing supper in a
sizzling skillet, huge iron kettle and blackened coffee-pot.
Her husband, pale and gaunt, the shadow of death in his weary
face and the droop of his body, sat leaning against one of the
wagon wheels trying to quiet a wailing, emaciated year-old baby
while little tow-headed Nellie, a vigorous child of seven,
frolicked undaunted by the August heat.
"Does beat all how she kin do it," thought Wade, listlessly.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: his turn of sitting up all night in a barrack-room. Godard was devoted
more especially to natural history. He made collections of shells and
minerals, knew how to stuff birds, kept a mass of curiosities bought
for nothing in his bedroom; took possession of phials and empty
perfume bottles for his specimens; pinned butterflies and beetles
under glass, hung Chinese parasols on the walls, together with dried
fishskins. He lived with his sister, an artificial-flower maker, in
the due de Richelieu. Though much admired by mammas this model young
man was looked down upon by his sister's shop-girls, who had tried to
inveigle him. Slim and lean, of medium height, with dark circles round
his eyes, Joseph Godard took little care of his person; his clothes
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Young Forester by Zane Grey: fight for life made me hold on.
Blue and white puffs of smoke swept by me. The trail was a dim, twisting
line. The slopes and pines, merged in a mass, flew backward in brown
sheets. Above the roar of the pursuing fire I heard the thunder of Target's
hoofs. I scarcely felt him or the saddle, only a motion and the splitting
of the wind.
The fear of death by fire, which had almost robbed me of strength, passed
from me. My brain cleared. Still I had no kind of hope, only a desperate
resolve not to give up.
The great bay horse was running to save his life and to save mine. It was a
race with fire. When I thought of the horse, and saw how fast he was going,
The Young Forester |
