| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: retreat he had disturbed? Without thinking of the danger to which they
might be exposed, the explorers were now impelled by an irresistible
curiosity, and in a few minutes, sixteen feet lower they rejoined Top.
There the passage ended in a vast and magnificent cavern.
Top was running backwards and forwards, barking furiously. Pencroft and
Neb, waving their torches, threw the light into every crevice; and at the
same time, Harding, Gideon Spilett, and Herbert, their spears raised, were
ready for any emergency which might arise. The enormous cavern was empty.
The settlers explored it in every direction. There was nothing there, not
an animal, not a human being; and yet Top continued to bark. Neither
caresses nor threats could make him be silent.
The Mysterious Island |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Chance by Joseph Conrad: suppose, but she has no use for me. There you have your shore
people. I quite understand anybody crying. I would have been gone
already, only, truth to say, I haven't any friends to go to." He
added brusquely: "And you?"
She made a slight negative sign. He must have been observing her,
putting two and two together. After a pause he said simply: "When
I first came here I thought you were governess to these girls. My
sister didn't say a word about you to me."
Then Flora spoke for the first time.
"Mrs. Fyne is my best friend."
"So she is mine," he said without the slightest irony or bitterness,
Chance |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: to the Temple of the Seven Spheres, and he must reach the
place by midnight if he would find his comrades waiting. So
he did not halt, but rode steadily across the stubble-fields.
A grove of date-palms made an island of gloom in the pale
yellow sea. As she passed into the shadow Vasda slackened her
pace, and began to pick her way more carefully.
Near the farther end of the darkness an access of caution
seemed to fall upon her. She scented some danger or
difficulty; it was not in her heart to fly from it--only to be
prepared for it, and to meet it wisely, as a good horse should
do. The grove was close and silent as the tomb; not a leaf
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