| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Talisman by Walter Scott: other ears than those they were designed for.
Here, therefore, the princes of the Crusade were assembled
awaiting Richard's arrival. And even the brief delay which was
thus interposed was turned to his disadvantage by his enemies,
various instances being circulated of his pride and undue
assumption of superiority, of which even the necessity of the
present short pause was quoted as an instance. Men strove to
fortify each other in their evil opinion of the King of England,
and vindicated the offence which each had taken, by putting the
most severe construction upon circumstances the most trifling;
and all this, perhaps, because they were conscious of an
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Rescue by Joseph Conrad: generally. There is a good lot of stores and arms--and Belarab
would bear watching--no doubt. Are you in any want?" he added,
putting his hand in his pocket.
"No, there's plenty to eat in the house," answered Jorgenson,
curtly. "Drop it," he burst out. "It would be better for you to
jump overboard at once. Look at me. I came out a boy of eighteen.
I can speak English, I can speak Dutch, I can speak every cursed
lingo of these islands--I remember things that would make your
hair stand on end--but I have forgotten the language of my own
country. I've traded, I've fought, I never broke my word to white
or native. And, look at me. If it hadn't been for the girl I
The Rescue |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: garden of the Luxembourg. And the Professor showed the whites of
his eyes devoutly, like one returning thanks after a dinner of many
courses.
I don't know anything sweeter than this leaking in of Nature
through all the cracks in the walls and floors of cities. You heap
up a million tons of hewn rocks on a square mile or two of earth
which was green once. The trees look down from the hill-sides and
ask each other, as they stand on tiptoe, - "What are these people
about?" And the small herbs at their feet look up and whisper
back, - "We will go and see." So the small herbs pack themselves
up in the least possible bundles, and wait until the wind steals to
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
