| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: sell to the dealers. The sale is at noon each day. The first time
I visited it was with a friend from Iowa who was anxious to get
some unique bits of porcelain. The auctioneer does not "cry" the
wares. Neither buyer nor seller says a word. Nobody knows what
anybody else has offered. The goods are passed out of a closed
room from a high window where the crowd can see them, and then
each one wanting them tries to be first in securing the hand of
the auctioneer, which is ensconced in his long sleeve, where, by
squeezing his fingers, they tell him how much they will give for
the particular piece. It is the only real case of "talking in the
sleeve' I have ever seen, and each piece is sold to the first
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Rescue by Joseph Conrad: "I would give all I am worth and throw in a few days of life into
the bargain if I could get her off and away before to-night."
He calmed down, and again stood gazing at the land. A little
within the entrance from behind the wall of forests an invisible
fire belched out steadily the black and heavy convolutions of
thick smoke, which stood out high, like a twisted and shivering
pillar against the clear blue of the sky.
"We must stop that game, Mr. Shaw," said Lingard, abruptly.
"Yes, sir. What game?" asked Shaw, looking round in wonder.
"This smoke," said Lingard, impatiently. "It's a signal."
"Certainly, sir--though I don't see how we can do it. It seems
The Rescue |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Blix by Frank Norris: success. Condy was too much of a born story-teller not to know
when he had done something distinctly good. When the story came
back from the typewriter's, with the additional strength that
print lends to fiction, and he had read it over, he could not
repress a sense of jubilation. The story rang true.
"Bully, bully!" he muttered between his teeth as he finished the
last paragraph. "It's a corker! If it's rejected everywhere, it's
an out-of-sight yarn just the same."
And there Condy's enthusiasm in the matter began to dwindle. The
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