| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Nana, Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille by Emile Zola: plain duty, she remarked severely, growing suddenly solicitous for
the decencies of family life. She even made him swear not to return
for the night; she was tired, and in showing proper obedience he was
doing no more than his duty. Much bored by this moral discourse,
Georges appeared in his mother's presence with heavy heart and
downcast head.
Fortunately for him his brother Philippe, a great merry devil of a
military man, had arrived during the day, a fact which greatly
curtailed the scene he was dreading. Mme Hugon was content to look
at him with eyes full of tears while Philippe, who had been put in
possession of the facts, threatened to go and drag him home by the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: sealed by a cheap, school-book materialism. He could see nothing in
the world but money and steam-engines. He did not know what you
meant by the word happiness. He had forgotten the simple emotions of
childhood, and perhaps never encountered the delights of youth. He
believed in production, that useful figment of economy, as if it had
been real like laughter; and production, without prejudice to liquor,
was his god and guide. One day he took me to task - novel cry to me
- upon the over-payment of literature. Literary men, he said, were
more highly paid than artisans; yet the artisan made threshing-
machines and butter-churns, and the man of letters, except in the way
of a few useful handbooks, made nothing worth the while. He produced
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne: on account of the particular colour of its waters."
"But up to this time I have seen nothing but transparent waves
and without any particular colour."
"Very likely; but as we advance to the bottom of the gulf, you will see
this singular appearance. I remember seeing the Bay of Tor entirely red,
like a sea of blood."
"And you attribute this colour to the presence of a microscopic seaweed?"
"Yes."
"So, Captain Nemo, it is not the first time you have overrun
the Red Sea on board the Nautilus?"
"No, sir."
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea |
