| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells: to me then to be brown men; but their limbs were oddly swathed
in some thin, dirty, white stuff down even to the fingers and feet:
I have never seen men so wrapped up before, and women so only in the East.
They wore turbans too, and thereunder peered out their elfin
faces at me,--faces with protruding lower-jaws and bright eyes.
They had lank black hair, almost like horsehair, and seemed
as they sat to exceed in stature any race of men I have seen.
The white-haired man, who I knew was a good six feet in height,
sat a head below any one of the three. I found afterwards that really
none were taller than myself; but their bodies were abnormally long,
and the thigh-part of the leg short and curiously twisted.
The Island of Doctor Moreau |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Light of Western Stars by Zane Grey: this was only a stupendous mirage, and why it seemed so different
from all else that she had seen, and so endless, so baffling, so
grand.
" It'll sure take you a little while to get used to being up high
and seeing so much," explained Florence. "That's the secret--
we're up high, the air is clear, and there's the whole bare world
beneath us. Don't it somehow rest you? Well, it will. Now see
those specks in the valley. They are stations, little towns.
The railroad goes down that way. The largest speck is
Chiricahua. It's over forty miles by trail. Here round to the
north you can see Don Carlos's rancho. He's fifteen miles off,
The Light of Western Stars |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: between lamp and window, she noticed that his shoulders
were crouched, like those of some shambling tramp.
The frowsy shadows of a stubble beard lay on his jaw
and throat. His clothes were crumpled and hung awry;
his boots were stained with mud. The silk hat on the piano
told its battered story with dumb eloquence.
Lifting the lamp, she moved forward a step, and threw its
light upon his face. A little groan sounded involuntarily
upon her lips. Out of a mask of unpleasant features,
swollen with drink and weighted by the physical craving
for rest and sleep, there stared at her two bloodshot eyes,
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
