| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: is there not occasion to fear, on the contrary, that they are sure to fire
the first shot?"
"Well, captain," cried Pencroft, "a bullet does not always reach its
mark."
"That which struck Herbert did not miss, Pencroft," replied the engineer.
"Besides, observe that if both of you left the corral I should remain here
alone to defend it. Do you imagine that the convicts will not see you leave
it, that they will not allow you to enter the forest, and that they will
not attack it during your absence, knowing that there is no one here but a
wounded boy and a man?"
"You are right, captain," replied Pencroft, his chest swelling with
The Mysterious Island |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Myths and Myth-Makers by John Fiske: to pull the parrot to pieces. As the wings and legs come away,
so tumble off the arms and legs of the magician; and finally
as the prince wrings the bird's neck, Punchkin twists his own
head round and dies.
[6] The same incident occurs in the Arabian story of
Seyf-el-Mulook and Bedeea-el-Jemal, where the Jinni's soul is
enclosed in the crop of a sparrow, and the sparrow imprisoned
in a small box, and this enclosed in another small box, and
this again in seven other boxes, which are put into seven
chests, contained in a coffer of marble, which is sunk in the
ocean that surrounds the world. Seyf-el-Mulook raises the
Myths and Myth-Makers |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: But I opened the door to find again, in a flash, my eyes unsealed.
In the presence of what I saw I reeled straight back upon my resistance.
Seated at my own table in clear noonday light I saw a person whom,
without my previous experience, I should have taken at
the first blush for some housemaid who might have stayed
at home to look after the place and who, availing herself
of rare relief from observation and of the schoolroom
table and my pens, ink, and paper, had applied herself
to the considerable effort of a letter to her sweetheart.
There was an effort in the way that, while her arms rested on
the table, her hands with evident weariness supported her head;
|
