| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy: beheld the musicians themselves, sitting in a blue wagon
with red wheels scrubbed as bright as new, and arched
with sticks, to which boughs and flowers were tied.
In front of this was the grand central dance of fifteen
or twenty couples, flanked by minor dances of inferior
individuals whose gyrations were not always in strict
keeping with the tune.
The young men wore blue and white rosettes, and with a
flush on their faces footed it to the girls, who, with the
excitement and the exercise, blushed deeper than the pink
of their numerous ribbons. Fair ones with long curls,
Return of the Native |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs: and its point was sharpened. A hundred times in my boyhood
days had I picked locks with a buttonhook. Could I but
reach that little bit of polished steel I might yet effect
at least a temporary escape.
Crawling to the limit of my chain, I found that by
reaching one hand as far out as I could my fingers
still fell an inch short of the coveted instrument.
It was tantalizing! Stretch every fiber of my being
as I would, I could not quite make it.
At last I turned about and extended one foot toward
the object. My heart came to my throat! I could just
At the Earth's Core |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells: in great striding leaps along the beach, and Moreau followed her.
She turned her head and saw him, then doubling abruptly made
for the bushes. She gained upon him at every stride. I saw her
plunge into them, and Moreau, running slantingly to intercept her,
fired and missed as she disappeared. Then he too vanished
in the green confusion. I stared after them, and then the pain
in my arm flamed up, and with a groan I staggered to my feet.
Montgomery appeared in the doorway, dressed, and with his revolver in
his hand.
"Great God, Prendick!" he said, not noticing that I was hurt,
"that brute's loose! Tore the fetter out of the wall!
The Island of Doctor Moreau |
