| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from When a Man Marries by Mary Roberts Rinehart: cheek against the door into Jim's room, looking maudlin while he
shouted love messages to her from the other side. At first she
refused to stir, but after Anne and Max had tried and failed, the
rest of us went to her in a body and implored her. We said Aunt
Selina was in awful shape--which she was, as to temper--and that
she had thrown a mustard plaster at Anne, which was true.
So Bella went, grumbling, and Jim was a maniac. We had not
thought it would be so bad for Bella, but Aunt Selina fell asleep
soon after she took charge, holding Bella's hand, and slept for
three hours and never let go!
About two that afternoon the sun came out, and the rest of us
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Dracula by Bram Stoker: as we ascended through the Pass, the dark firs stood out here and there
against the background of late-lying snow. Sometimes, as the road was
cut through the pine woods that seemed in the darkness to be closing
down upon us, great masses of greyness which here and there bestrewed
the trees, produced a peculiarly weird and solemn effect, which carried
on the thoughts and grim fancies engendered earlier in the evening,
when the falling sunset threw into strange relief the ghost-like clouds
which amongst the Carpathians seem to wind ceaselessly through the valleys.
Sometimes the hills were so steep that, despite our driver's haste,
the horses could only go slowly. I wished to get down and walk
up them, as we do at home, but the driver would not hear of it.
Dracula |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: French detachment of eight hundred men. We were two hundred at the
most. My scouts had sold me. I was thrown into the prison of
Andernach, and they talked of shooting me, as a warning to intimidate
others. The French talked also of reprisals. My father, however,
obtained a reprieve for three days to give him time to see General
Augereau, whom he knew, and ask for my pardon, which was granted. Thus
it happened that I saw Prosper Magnan when he was brought to the
prison. He inspired me with the profoundest pity. Though pale,
distracted, and covered with blood, his whole countenance had a
character of truth and innocence which struck me forcibly. To me his
long fair hair and clear blue eyes seemed German. A true image of my
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