| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Adam Bede by George Eliot: seemed low at all, as she did the night before. I thought she had
a strange look with her eyes, and she got a bit flushed towards
evening. I was afraid of the fever, and I thought I'd call and
ask an acquaintance of mine, an experienced woman, to come back
with me when I went out. It was a very dark night. I didn't
fasten the door behind me; there was no lock; it was a latch with
a bolt inside, and when there was nobody in the house I always
went out at the shop door. But I thought there was no danger in
leaving it unfastened that little while. I was longer than I
meant to be, for I had to wait for the woman that came back with
me. It was an hour and a half before we got back, and when we
Adam Bede |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: inland castaway - was to find a fraction of my day-dreams realised.
I was on the skirts of a little wood of birch, sprinkled with a few
beeches; behind, it adjoined another wood of fir; and in front, it
broke up and went down in open order into a shallow and meadowy
dale. All around there were bare hilltops, some near, some far
away, as the perspective closed or opened, but none apparently much
higher than the rest. The wind huddled the trees. The golden
specks of autumn in the birches tossed shiveringly. Overhead the
sky was full of strings and shreds of vapour, flying, vanishing,
reappearing, and turning about an axis like tumblers, as the wind
hounded them through heaven. It was wild weather and famishing
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Ebb-Tide by Stevenson & Osbourne: Well, shall we step on the verandah? I have a dry sherry that I
would like your opinion of.'
Herrick followed him forth to where, under the light of the
hanging lamps, the table shone with napery and crystal; followed
him as the criminal goes with the hangman, or the sheep
with the butcher; took the sherry mechanically, drank it, and
spoke mechanical words of praise. The object of his terror had
become suddenly inverted; till then he had seen Attwater trussed
and gagged, a helpless victim, and had longed to run in and save
him; he saw him now tower up mysterious and menacing, the
angel of the Lord's wrath, armed with knowledge and threatening
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