The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Young Forester by Zane Grey: seemed to indicate pleasant indifference; still, no one could have been
misled by it, for the long, steady gaze he gave the men and his cool
presence that held the room quiet meant something vastly different. No
reply was offered. Bud and Bill sat down, evidently to resume their
card-playing. The uneasy silence broke to a laugh, then to subdued voices,
and finally the clatter and hum began again. Dick led me outside, where we
were soon joined by Jim.
"He's holed up," suggested Dick.
"Shore. I don't take no stock in his hittin' the trail. He's layin' low."
"Let's look around a bit, anyhow."
Dick took me back to the cook's cabin and, bidding me remain inside, strode
The Young Forester |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: He sank into a chair, staring aimlessly at the outspread papers.
How was he to work, while on the other side of the door she sat
with that volume in her hand? The door did not shut her out--he
saw her distinctly, felt her close to him in a contact as painful
as the pressure on a bruise.
The sensation was part of the general strangeness that made him
feel like a man waking from a long sleep to find himself in an
unknown country among people of alien tongue. We live in our own
souls as in an unmapped region, a few acres of which we have
cleared for our habitation; while of the nature of those nearest
us we know but the boundaries that march with ours. Of the points
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: placed themselves just in our way; upon which we drew up in a
little line, before our camels, being not above sixteen men in all.
Thus drawn up, we halted, and sent out the Siberian servant, who
attended his lord, to see who they were; his master was the more
willing to let him go, because he was not a little apprehensive
that they were a Siberian troop sent out after him. The man came
up near them with a flag of truce, and called to them; but though
he spoke several of their languages, or dialects of languages
rather, he could not understand a word they said; however, after
some signs to him not to come near them at his peril, the fellow
came back no wiser than he went; only that by their dress, he said,
Robinson Crusoe |