| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The War in the Air by H. G. Wells: suffered.
"Gaw!" said Bert.
He stood for some fatal seconds watching the petrol drip and
catch, and the flame, which was now beginning to smell of enamel
as well as oil, spread and grew. His chief idea was the
sorrowful one that he had not sold the machine second-hand a year
ago, and that he ought to have done so--a good idea in its way,
but not immediately helpful. He turned upon Edna sharply. "Get
a lot of wet sand," he said. Then he wheeled the machine a
little towards the side of the roadway, and laid it down and
looked about for a supply of wet sand. The flames received this
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave by Frederick Douglass: would follow my learning to read had already come,
to torment and sting my soul to unutterable anguish.
As I writhed under it, I would at times feel that
learning to read had been a curse rather than a bless-
ing. It had given me a view of my wretched condi-
tion, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to the
horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out.
In moments of agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for
their stupidity. I have often wished myself a beast.
I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to
my own. Any thing, no matter what, to get rid of
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton: the church tower with the dial that had marked the hours for the
sisters before Ann Eliza had bought the nickel clock. She looked
at it all as though it had been the scene of some unknown life, of
which the vague report had reached her: she felt for herself the
only remote pity that busy people accord to the misfortunes which
come to them by hearsay.
She walked to Broadway and down to the office of the house-
agent to whom she had entrusted the sub-letting of the shop. She
left the key with one of his clerks, who took it from her as if it
had been any one of a thousand others, and remarked that the
weather looked as if spring was really coming; then she turned and
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