| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: evolutional protests of a few blue asters or a few composite
flowers of the coryopsis sort, which contrive to display their
rare flashes of color through the general waving of cat-heads,
blood-weeds, wild cane, and marsh grasses. For, at a hasty
glance, the general appearance of this marsh verdure is vague
enough, as it ranges away towards the sand, to convey the idea of
amphibious vegetation,--a primitive flora as yet undecided
whether to retain marine habits and forms, or to assume
terrestrial ones;--and the occasional inspection of surprising
shapes might strengthen this fancy. Queer flat-lying and
many-branching things, which resemble sea-weeds in juiciness and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer: We have evidence that he dragged from you the secret of the combination."
"God knows we have!" said West. "But who is this Fu-Manchu, and how--
how in the name of wonder did he get into my chambers?"
Smith pulled out his watch. "That," he said rapidly, "I cannot
delay to explain if I'm to intercept the man who has the plans.
Come along, Petrie; we must be at Tilbury within the hour.
There is just a bare chance."
CHAPTER XX
IT was with my mind in a condition of unique perplexity that I hurried
with Nayland Smith into the cab which waited and dashed off through
the streets in which the busy life of London just stirred into being.
The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: idols, began to grow an eyesore in the scanty studio of my
friend. Dijon and I have sat by the hour, and gazed upon that
company of images. The severe, the frisky, the classical, the
Louis Quinze, were there--from Joan of Arc in her soldierly
cuirass to Leda with the swan; nay, and God forgive me for a
man that knew better! the humorous was represented also. We
sat and gazed, I say; we criticised, we turned them hither and
thither; even upon the closest inspection they looked quite like
statuettes; and yet nobody would have a gift of them!
Vanity dies hard; in some obstinate cases it outlives the man:
but about the sixth month, when I already owed near two
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