| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: he need never trouble himself to start again. He won't
find any cargo in his old trade. There's too much com-
petition nowadays for people to keep their stuff lying
about for a ship that does not turn up when she's ex-
pected. It's a bad lookout for him. He swears he will
shut himself on board and starve to death in his cabin
rather than sell her--even if he could find a buyer. And
that's not likely in the least. Not even the Japs would
give her insured value for her. It isn't like selling
sailing-ships. Steamers DO get out of date, besides get-
ting old."
End of the Tether |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Underground City by Jules Verne: produced all over the mine by disconnecting the wires.
Below the dome lay a lake of an extent to be compared to the Dead Sea
of the Mammoth caves--a deep lake whose transparent waters swarmed with
eyeless fish, and to which the engineer gave the name of Loch Malcolm.
There, in this immense natural excavation, Simon Ford built his
new cottage, which he would not have exchanged for the finest house
in Prince's Street, Edinburgh. This dwelling was situated on the shores
of the loch, and its five windows looked out on the dark waters,
which extended further than the eye could see. Two months later a second
habitation was erected in the neighborhood of Simon Ford's cottage:
this was for James Starr. The engineer had given
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: years of service. Now you know the pair of antagonists.
"During the first three months of a partnership dissolved four months
later in a bout of fisticuffs, Cerizet and Claparon bought up two
thousand francs' worth of bills bearing Maxime's signature (since
Maxime was his name), and filled a couple of letters to bursting with
judgments, appeals, orders of the court, distress-warrants,
application for stay of proceedings, and all the rest of it; to put it
briefly, they had bills for three thousand two hundred francs odd
centimes, for which they had given five hundred francs; the transfer
being made under private seal, with special power of attorney, to save
the expense of registration. Now it so happened at this juncture,
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