| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Options by O. Henry: that section of the country--if I understand your figurative language
aright," replied the colonel.
"All right. Now I'll show you something."
Thacker reached for his thick manila envelope and dumped a mass of
typewritten manuscript on the editors desk.
"Here's some truck," said he, "that I paid cash for, and brought along
with me."
One by one he folded back the manuscripts and showed their first pages
to the colonel.
Here are four short stories four of the highest priced authors in the
United States--three of 'em living in New York, and one commuting.
 Options |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: criticizing Mrs Ramsay, how she was alarming, too, in her way,
high-handed, or words to that effect, when Mr Bankes made it entirely
unnecessary for her to speak by his rapture. For such it was considering
his age, turned sixty, and his cleanliness and his impersonality, and the
white scientific coat which seemed to clothe him. For him to gaze as Lily
saw him gazing at Mrs Ramsay was a rapture, equivalent, Lily felt, to the
loves of dozens of young men (and perhaps Mrs Ramsay had never excited the
loves of dozens of young men). It was love, she thought, pretending to
move her canvas, distilled and filtered; love that never attempted to
clutch its object; but, like the love which mathematicians bear their
symbols, or poets their phrases, was meant to be spread over the world and
 To the Lighthouse |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Youth by Joseph Conrad: This time I caught it--and it was a sauce-pan. At first,
being stupid with fatigue and thinking of nothing but
the pumps, I did not understand what I had in my hand.
Suddenly it dawned upon me, and I shouted, 'Boys, the
house on deck is gone. Leave this, and let's look for the
cook.'
"There was a deck-house forward, which contained
the galley, the cook's berth, and the quarters of the
crew. As we had expected for days to see it swept away,
the hands had been ordered to sleep in the cabin--the
only safe place in the ship. The steward, Abraham,
 Youth |