| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: of water and, perhaps, of food. If the tower was the deserted
relic of a bygone age she would scarcely find food there, but
there was still a chance that there might be water. If it was
inhabited, then must her approach be cautious, for only enemies
might be expected to abide in so far distant a land. Tara of
Helium knew that she must be far from the twin cities of her
grandfather's empire, but had she guessed within even a thousand
haads of the reality, she had been stunned by realization of the
utter hopelessness of her state.
Keeping the craft low, for the buoyancy tanks were still intact,
the girl skimmed the ground until the gently-moving wind had
The Chessmen of Mars |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Europeans by Henry James: the ensuing twenty-four hours, in the course of which the two
foreign visitors were discussed and analyzed with a great deal
of earnestness and subtlety. The discussion went forward,
as I say, in the family circle; but that circle on the evening
following Madame M; auunster's return to town, as on many
other occasions, included Robert Acton and his pretty sister.
If you had been present, it would probably not have seemed
to you that the advent of these brilliant strangers was treated
as an exhilarating occurrence, a pleasure the more in this
tranquil household, a prospective source of entertainment.
This was not Mr. Wentworth's way of treating any human occurrence.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: little snow-image, which Peony and I have been making. Peony will
tell you so, as well as I."
"Yes, mamma," asseverated Peony, with much gravity in his crimson
little phiz; "this is 'ittle snow-child. Is not she a nice one?
But, mamma, her hand is, oh, so very cold!"
While mamma still hesitated what to think and what to do, the
street-gate was thrown open, and the father of Violet and Peony
appeared, wrapped in a pilot-cloth sack, with a fur cap drawn
down over his ears, and the thickest of gloves upon his hands.
Mr. Lindsey was a middle-aged man, with a weary and yet a happy
look in his wind-flushed and frost-pinched face, as if he had
The Snow Image |
