| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft: from organisms hitherto considered as peculiar to far older periods
- even rudimentary fishes, mollusks, and corals as remote as the
Silunan or Ordovician. The inevitable inference was that in this
part of the world there had been a remarkable and unique degree
of continuity between the life of over three hundred million years
ago and that of only thirty million years ago. How far this continuity
had extended beyond the Oligocene Age when the cavern was closed
was of course past all speculation. In any event, the coming of
the frightful ice in the Pleistocene some five hundred thousand
years ago - a mere yesterday as compared with the age of this
cavity - must have put an end to any of the primal forms which
At the Mountains of Madness |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: assurance.
"Then you may rest content. You have done it."
She shrugged her shoulders slightly. But just before reaching the
end of the path she relented, stopped, and went back to him.
"I don't suppose you are very anxious for people to know how near
you came to absolute turpitude. You may rest easy on that point.
I shall speak to my father, of course, and we will agree to say
that he has died - nothing more."
"Yes," said Renouard in a lifeless voice. "He is dead. His very
ghost shall be done with presently."
She went on, but he remained standing stock still in the dusk. She
Within the Tides |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: me, in harshly piercing tones, exclaiming, -
'Miss Grey! Is it possible? What, in the devil's name, can you be
thinking about?'
'I can't get them in, sir,' said I, turning round, and beholding
Mr. Bloomfield, with his hair on end, and his pale blue eyes
bolting from their sockets.
'But I INSIST upon their being got in!' cried he, approaching
nearer, and looking perfectly ferocious.
'Then, sir, you must call them yourself, if you please, for they
won't listen to me,' I replied, stepping back.
'Come in with you, you filthy brats; or I'll horsewhip you every
Agnes Grey |
