| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Desert Gold by Zane Grey: rampart of their hiding-place.
The sun passed the zenith, began to slope westward, and to grow
hotter as it sloped. The men waited and waited. Gale saw no
impatience even in Thorne. The sultry air seemed to be laden
with some burden or quality that was at once composed of heat,
menace, color, and silence. Even the light glancing up from the
lava seemed red and the silence had substance. Sometimes Gale
felt that it was unbearable. Yet he made no effort to break it.
Suddenly this dead stillness was rent by a shot, clear and stinging,
close at hand. It was from a rifle, not a carbine. With startling
quickness a cry followed--a cry that pierced Gale--it was so thin,
Desert Gold |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: caused our failure.
As I watched the oncoming ten I saw their pursuers race
swiftly into sight. It was another great fleet; for a moment
I could not believe my eyes, but finally I was forced to
admit that the most fatal calamity had overtaken the expedition,
for the fleet I saw was none other than the fleet of the
First Born, that should have been safely bottled up in Omean.
What a series of misfortunes and disasters! What awful
fate hovered over me, that I should have been so terribly
thwarted at every angle of my search for my lost love!
Could it be possible that the curse of Issus was upon me!
The Gods of Mars |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The American by Henry James: comical effect. He had lost the sense of what the marquis was saying;
M. de Bellegarde's superior style was a mere humming in his ears. All that
he understood, in his deep and simple indignation, was that the matter was
not a violent joke, and that the people before him were perfectly serious.
"Do you suppose I can take this?" he asked. "Do you suppose it can matter
to me what you say? Do you suppose I can seriously listen to you?
You are simply crazy!"
Madame de Bellegarde gave a rap with her fan in the palm of her hand.
"If you don't take it you can leave it, sir. It matters very little
what you do. My daughter has given you up."
"She doesn't mean it," Newman declared after a moment.
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