| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: his life.
"What's that?" asked Tom, still looking square at him, Quigg
squirming under her glance like a worm on a pin.
"Well, the company can't tell how much feed was in the bins, and
tools, and sech like," he said, with another laugh.
A laugh is always a safe parry when a pair of clear gray
search-light eyes are cutting into one like a rapier.
"An' yer idea is for me to git paid for stuff that wasn't burned
up, is it?"
"Well, that's as how the adjuster says. Sometimes he sees it an'
sometimes he don't--that's where the pull comes in."
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: by circumstance. Each perhaps hoped to preserve a cherished illusion.
It might almost have been thought that the stranger feared lest he
should hear some vulgar word from those lips as fresh and pure as a
flower, and that Caroline felt herself unworthy of the mysterious
personage who was evidently possessed of power and wealth.
As to Madame Crochard, that tender mother, almost angry at her
daughter's persistent lack of decisiveness, now showed a sulky face to
the "Black Gentleman," on whom she had hitherto smiled with a sort of
benevolent servility. Never before had she complained so bitterly of
being compelled, at her age, to do the cooking; never had her catarrh
and her rheumatism wrung so many groans from her; finally, she could
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: his hands there with a suddenly vivid and sad perception of the
fact that he himself was growing old too; that the time of
reckless daring was past for both of them, and that they had to
seek refuge in prudent cunning. They wanted peace; they were
disposed to reform; they were ready even to retrench, so as to
have the wherewithal to bribe the evil days away, if bribed away
they could be. Babalatchi sighed for the second time that night
as he squatted again at his master's feet and tendered him his
betel-nut box in mute sympathy. And they sat there in close yet
silent communion of betel-nut chewers, moving their jaws slowly,
expectorating decorously into the wide-mouthed brass vessel they
Almayer's Folly |
