| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White: insects, enjoying the sun, gossiping with a friend and generally
footling about that the late afternoon caught him unawares with
never a chirp accomplished. So he sat in a bush and said his say
over and over just as fast as he could without pause for breath
or recreation. It was really quite a feat. Just at dusk, after
two hours of gabbling, he would reach the end of his contracted
number. With final relieved chirp he ended.
It has been said that African birds are "songless." This is a
careless statement that can easily be read to mean that African
birds are silent. The writer evidently must have had in mind as a
criterion some of our own or the English great feathered
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson: again in safety, and this should be his last folly as certainly as
it had been his first. The matches stood on a little table by the
bed, and he began to grope his way in that direction. As he moved,
his apprehensions grew upon him once more, and he was pleased, when
his foot encountered an obstacle, to find it nothing more alarming
than a chair. At last he touched curtains. From the position of
the window, which was faintly visible, he knew he must be at the
foot of the bed, and had only to feel his way along it in order to
reach the table in question.
He lowered his hand, but what it touched was not simply a
counterpane - it was a counterpane with something underneath it
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: "Am I a usurer?" asked the perfumer reproachfully.
"What can I do, monsieur? I went to your old clerk, du Tillet, and he
would not take them at any price. No doubt he wanted to find out how
much I'd be willing to lose on them."
"I don't know those signatures," said the perfumer.
"We have such queer names in canes and umbrellas; they belong to the
peddlers."
"Well, I won't say that I will take all; but I'll manage the short
ones."
"For the want of a thousand francs--sure to be repaid in four months--
don't throw me into the hands of the blood-suckers who get the best of
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
