| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: from the unsuspected sharer of my cabin as though he were my
second self. There he was on the other side of the bulkhead,
four or five feet from us, no more, as we sat in the saloon.
I looked politely at Captain Archbold (if that was his name),
but it was the other I saw, in a gray sleeping suit, seated on
a low stool, his bare feet close together, his arms folded,
and every word said between us falling into the ears of his
dark head bowed on his chest.
"I have been at sea now, man and boy, for seven-and-thirty years,
and I've never heard of such a thing happening in an English ship.
And that it should be my ship. Wife on board, too."
The Secret Sharer |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mansion by Henry van Dyke: thoughts
began to take on their habitual assurance and complacency. Were
not these
people going to the Celestial City? And was not he in his right
place
among them? He had always looked forward to this journey.
If they were sure, each one, of finding a mansion there, could
not he be
far more sure? His life had been more fruitful than theirs.
He had been a leader, a founder of new enterprises, a pillar of
Church and State, a prince of the House of Israel. Ten talents
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Octopus by Frank Norris: diction and manner of the rostrum into private life. It was said
of him that his most colloquial conversation could be taken down
in shorthand and read off as an admirable specimen of pure, well-
chosen English. He loved to do things upon a grand scale, to
preside, to dominate. In his good humour there was something
Jovian. When angry, everybody around him trembled. But he had
not the genius for detail, was not patient. The certain
grandiose lavishness of his disposition occupied itself more with
results than with means. He was always ready to take chances, to
hazard everything on the hopes of colossal returns. In the
mining days at Placerville there was no more redoubtable poker
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