| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Octopus by Frank Norris: easily, deeply, into the loam, the prolonged clinking of trace-
chains, the working of the smooth brown flanks in the harness,
the clatter of wooden hames, the champing of bits, the click of
iron shoes against pebbles, the brittle stubble of the surface
ground crackling and snapping as the furrows turned, the
sonorous, steady breaths wrenched from the deep, labouring
chests, strap-bound, shining with sweat, and all along the line
the voices of the men talking to the horses. Everywhere there
were visions of glossy brown backs, straining, heaving, swollen
with muscle; harness streaked with specks of froth, broad, cup-
shaped hoofs, heavy with brown loam, men's faces red with tan,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lost Continent by Edgar Rice Burroughs: dropped with the falling ship, and the buoyancy of hope ran
low in sympathy.
The waves were running to tremendous heights, and the
Coldwater was not designed to meet such waves head on. Her
elements were the blue ether, far above the raging storm, or
the greater depths of ocean, which no storm could ruffle.
As I stood speculating upon our chances once we settled into
the frightful Maelstrom beneath us and at the same time
mentally computing the hours which must elapse before aid
could reach us, the wireless operator clambered up the
ladder to the bridge, and, disheveled and breathless, stood
Lost Continent |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: a high price upon achievement; and the artist may easily fall
into the error of the French naturalists, and consider any
fact as welcome to admission if it be the ground of brilliant
handiwork; or, again, into the error of the modern landscape-
painter, who is apt to think that difficulty overcome and
science well displayed can take the place of what is, after
all, the one excuse and breath of art - charm. A little
further, and he will regard charm in the light of an unworthy
sacrifice to prettiness, and the omission of a tedious
passage as an infidelity to art.
We have now the matter of this difference before us. The
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