| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: from Pope may be but "fallings from us, vanishings," when fear
clutches us, and a glass of sherry is hurrying like smoke among
our ideas. Ladislaw, who stood at the window behind the speaker,
thought, "it's all up now. The only chance is that, since the best
thing won't always do, floundering may answer for once." Mr. Brooke,
meanwhile, having lost other clews, fell back on himself and his
qualifications--always an appropriate graceful subject for a candidate.
"I am a close neighbor of yours, my good friends--you've known
me on the bench a good while--I've always gone a good deal into
public questions--machinery, now, and machine-breaking--you're many
of you concerned with machinery, and I've been going into that lately.
Middlemarch |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: Gertrude, looking bright and confident, came to join our talk from
the shrubbery; the initial, a little flushed and evidently in a
state of refreshed relationship, came with her, and a cheerful lady
in pink and more particularly distinguished by a pink bonnet joined
our little group. Gertrude had been sipping admiration and was not
disposed to play a passive part in the talk.
"Socialism!" she cried, catching the word. "It's well Pa isn't
here. He has Fits when people talk of socialism. Fits!"
The initial laughed in a general kind of way.
The curate said there was socialism AND socialism, and looked at
Margaret to gauge whether he had been too bold in this utterance.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane: It was furiously slit and slashed by the knifelike
fire from the rifles.
To the youth the fighters resembled animals
tossed for a death struggle into a dark pit. There
was a sensation that he and his fellows, at bay,
were pushing back, always pushing fierce on-
slaughts of creatures who were slippery. Their
beams of crimson seemed to get no purchase upon
the bodies of their foes; the latter seemed to evade
them with ease, and come through, between,
around, and about with unopposed skill.
The Red Badge of Courage |
