| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald: Juliennes. The food for one. Hand the rest around."
Amory ate little, having seized a chair where he could watch the
sea and feel the rock of it. When luncheon was over they sat and
smoked quietly.
"What's the bill?"
Some one scanned it.
"Eight twenty-five."
"Rotten overcharge. We'll give them two dollars and one for the
waiter. Kerry, collect the small change."
The waiter approached, and Kerry gravely handed him a dollar,
tossed two dollars on the check, and turned away. They sauntered
This Side of Paradise |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Moon-Face and Other Stories by Jack London: seen, the distant bed of it towering high above their heads. They were
rounding the curve, leaning toward the inside, gazing before them at the
swift-growing picture. There was no sound of warning. She heard nothing, but
even before the horse went down she experienced the feeling that the unison of
the two leaping animals was broken. She turned her head, and so quickly that
she saw Comanche fall. It was not a stumble nor a trip. He fell as though,
abruptly, in midleap, he had died or been struck a stunning blow.
And in that moment she remembered Planchette; it seared her brain as a
lightning-flash of all-embracing memory. Her horse was back on its haunches,
the weight of her body on the reins; but her head was turned and her eyes were
on the falling Comanche. He struck the road-bed squarely, with his legs loose
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: success depends not a little on the way you look at it. But Fate
looks at nothing. It has no discretion. He no longer considered
it eminently desirable all round to establish publicly the identity
of the man who had blown himself up that morning with such horrible
completeness. But he was not certain of the view his department
would take. A department is to those it employs a complex
personality with ideas and even fads of its own. It depends on the
loyal devotion of its servants, and the devoted loyalty of trusted
servants is associated with a certain amount of affectionate
contempt, which keeps it sweet, as it were. By a benevolent
provision of Nature no man is a hero to his valet, or else the
The Secret Agent |
