| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne: roar of the explosion. But the rocks suddenly assumed a new
arrangement: they rent asunder like a curtain. I saw a bottomless pit
open on the shore. The sea, lashed into sudden fury, rose up in an
enormous billow, on the ridge of which the unhappy raft was uplifted
bodily in the air with all its crew and cargo.
We all three fell down flat. In less than a second we were in deep,
unfathomable darkness. Then I felt as if not only myself but the raft
also had no support beneath. I thought it was sinking; but it was not
so. I wanted to speak to my uncle, but the roaring of the waves
prevented him from hearing even the sound of my voice.
In spite of darkness, noise, astonishment, and terror, I then
Journey to the Center of the Earth |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: ill both for the Emperor and the empire, and so the boy Emperor
began his reign in the midst of evil forebodings.
During the nine years that Kuang Hsu had nominal control of
affairs a series of dire calamities befell the empire. Famines as
the result of drought, floods from the overflow of "China's
Sorrow," war with Japan, filching of territory by the European
countries, while editorials appeared daily in the English papers
of the port cities to the effect that China was to be divided up
among the powers. Then too Kuang Hsu was childless and there was
no hope of his giving an heir to the throne.
Times and seasons have their meanings for the Chinese. Anything
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: courage, got into her carriage at two in the afternoon to try for
admittance to the boudoir of the famous coquette, who was never
visible till that hour. Madame de Sommervieux had not yet seen any of
the ancient and magnificent mansions of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. As
she made her way through the stately corridors, the handsome
staircases, the vast drawing-rooms--full of flowers, though it was in
the depth of winter, and decorated with the taste peculiar to women
born to opulence or to the elegant habits of the aristocracy,
Augustine felt a terrible clutch at her heart; she coveted the secrets
of an elegance of which she had never had an idea; she breathed in an
air of grandeur which explained the attraction of the house for her
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