| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tales of the Klondyke by Jack London: gamekeepers and lookouts worked in shifts and the clattering
roulette ball never slept. At such times his loneliness and
bankruptcy stunned him till he sat for hours in the same
unblinking, unchanging position. At other times, his long-pent
bitterness found voice in passionate outbursts; for he had rubbed
the world the wrong way and did not like the feel of it.
"Life's a skin-game," he was fond of repeating, and on this one
note he rang the changes. "I never had half a chance," he
complained. "I was faked in my birth and flim-flammed with my
mother's milk. The dice were loaded when she tossed the box, and
I was born to prove the loss. But that was no reason she should
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy: she passed the cottage of Susan Nunsuch, a little lower
down than her grandfather's. The door was ajar, and a
riband of bright firelight fell over the ground without.
As Eustacia crossed the firebeams she appeared for an
instant as distinct as a figure in a phantasmagoria--a
creature of light surrounded by an area of darkness;
the moment passed, and she was absorbed in night again.
A woman who was sitting inside the cottage had seen and
recognized her in that momentary irradiation. This was
Susan herself, occupied in preparing a posset for her
little boy, who, often ailing, was now seriously unwell.
Return of the Native |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: Reefed foresail! You understand the sort of weather. The only sail we
had left to keep the ship running; so you may guess what it had been
like for days. Anxious sort of job, that. He gave me some of his cursed
insolence at the sheet. I tell you I was overdone with this terrific weather
that seemed to have no end to it. Terrific, I tell you--and a deep ship.
I believe the fellow himself was half crazed with funk. It was no time
for gentlemanly reproof, so I turned round and felled him like an ox.
He up and at me. We closed just as an awful sea made for the ship.
All hands saw it coming and took to the rigging, but I had him by
the throat, and went on shaking him like a rat, the men above us yelling,
`Look out! look out!' Then a crash as if the sky had fallen on my head.
The Secret Sharer |
