| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Iron Puddler by James J. Davis: river. Some races are pig-iron; Hottentots and Bushmen are pig-
iron. They break at a blow. They have been smelted out of wild
animalism, but they went no further; they are of no use in this
modern world because they are brittle. Only the wrought-iron
races can do the work. All this I felt but could not say in the
days when I piled the pig-iron in the puddling furnace and turned
with boyish eagerness to have my father show me how.
Six hundred pounds was the weight of pig-iron we used to put
into a single hearth. Much wider than the hearth was the fire
grate, for we needed a heat that was intense. The flame was made
by burning bituminous coal. Vigorously I stoked that fire for
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Nana, Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille by Emile Zola: another subject:
"She must have been very nice-looking, that Du Joncquoy woman, some
fifteen years ago. Poor Estelle has grown lankier than ever. What
a nice lath to put into a bed!"
But interrupting himself, he returned to the subject of tomorrow's
supper.
"What's so tiresome of those shows is that it's always the same set
of women. One wants a novelty. Do try and invent a new girl. By
Jove, happy thought! I'll go and beseech that stout man to bring
the woman he was trotting about the other evening at the Varietes."
He referred to the chief clerk, sound asleep in the middle of the
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane: toward them, it looked as if they would merely
succeed in making a great sprinkling of corpses
on the grass between their former position and
the fence. But they were in a state of frenzy,
perhaps because of forgotten vanities, and it made
an exhibition of sublime recklessness. There was
no obvious questioning, nor figurings, nor dia-
grams. There was, apparently, no considered
loopholes. It appeared that the swift wings of
their desires would have shattered against the
iron gates of the impossible.
The Red Badge of Courage |
