| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: Tantalus and a row of soda syphons. He shut the door after me
carefully.
"Well, here we are!" he said. "Going strong! Have a whisky,
George? No!--Wise man! Neither will I! You see me at it! At
it--hard!"
"Hard at what?"
"Read it," and he thrust into my hand a label--that label that
has now become one of the most familiar objects of the chemist's
shop, the greenish-blue rather old-fashioned bordering, the
legend, the name in good black type, very clear, and the strong
man all set about with lightning flashes above the double column
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: He rested a hand on the end of the skylight to steady himself with,
and all that time did not stir a limb, so far as I could see.
"Nice little tale for a quiet tea party," he concluded
in the same tone.
One of my hands, too, rested on the end of the skylight; neither did I stir
a limb, so far as I knew. We stood less than a foot from each other.
It occurred to me that if old "Bless my soul--you don't say so"
were to put his head up the companion and catch sight of us,
he would think he was seeing double, or imagine himself come
upon a scene of weird witchcraft; the strange captain having
a quiet confabulation by the wheel with his own gray ghost.
The Secret Sharer |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: ribbon which concealed her from him. In the evening, installed at an
early hour in his box, alone, reclining on a sofa, he made for
himself, like a Turk drunk with opium, a happiness as fruitful, as
lavish, as he wished. First of all, he familiarized himself gradually
with the too intense emotions which his mistress' singing caused him;
then he taught his eyes to look at her, and was finally able to
contemplate her at his leisure without fearing an explosion of
concealed frenzy, like that which had seized him the first day. His
passion became more profound as it became more tranquil. But the
unsociable sculptor would not allow his solitude, peopled as it was
with images, adorned with the fanciful creations of hope, and full of
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