| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: of corrugated iron for the night. Tendering a coin through the
trap door the fare slipped out and away, leaving an effect of
uncanny, eccentric ghastliness upon the driver's mind. But the
size of the coin was satisfactory to his touch, and his education
not being literary, he remained untroubled by the fear of finding
it presently turned to a dead leaf in his pocket. Raised above the
world of fares by the nature of his calling, he contemplated their
actions with a limited interest. The sharp pulling of his horse
right round expressed his philosophy.
Meantime the Assistant Commissioner was already giving his order to
a waiter in a little Italian restaurant round the corner - one of
The Secret Agent |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: in the attitude of the stiffening rigid limbs.
"The dying man must have hidden the counter-deed under his pillow to
keep it safe so long as life should last; and his wife must have
guessed his thought; indeed, it might be read plainly in his last
dying gesture, in the convulsive clutch of his claw-like hands. The
pillow had been flung to the floor at the foot of the bed; I could see
the print of her heel upon it. At her feet lay a paper with the
Count's arms on the seals; I snatched it up, and saw that it was
addressed to me. I looked steadily at the Countess with the pitiless
clear-sightedness of an examining magistrate confronting a guilty
creature. The contents were blazing in the grate; she had flung them
Gobseck |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: my astonishment, he came exactly opposite the spot where Masapo sat and,
stretching out his great, groping hands, seized the kaross with which he
was covered and, with a jerk, tore it from him.
"Search this!" he cried, throwing it on the ground, and a woman
searched.
Presently she uttered an exclamation, and from among the fur of one of
the tails of the kaross produced a tiny bag that appeared to be made out
of the bladder of a fish. This she handed to Zikali, whose eyes had now
been unbandaged.
He looked at it, then gave it to Maputa, saying:
"There is the poison--there is the poison, but who gave it I do not say.
Child of Storm |
