| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: When they entered the parlor Caleb had thrown down his hat and was
seated at his desk.
"What! Fred, my boy!" he said, in a tone of mild surprise, holding his
pen still undipped; "you are here betimes." But missing the usual
expression of cheerful greeting in Fred's face, he immediately added,
"Is there anything up at home?--anything the matter?"
"Yes, Mr. Garth, I am come to tell something that I am afraid will
give you a bad opinion of me. I am come to tell you and Mrs. Garth
that I can't keep my word. I can't find the money to meet the bill
after all. I have been unfortunate; I have only got these fifty
pounds towards the hundred and sixty."
Middlemarch |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle: "Well, very soon I found that I was saving considerable sums of
money. I do not mean that any beggar in the streets of London
could earn 700 pounds a year--which is less than my average
takings--but I had exceptional advantages in my power of making
up, and also in a facility of repartee, which improved by
practice and made me quite a recognized character in the City.
All day a stream of pennies, varied by silver, poured in upon me,
and it was a very bad day in which I failed to take 2 pounds.
"As I grew richer I grew more ambitious, took a house in the
country, and eventually married, without anyone having a
suspicion as to my real occupation. My dear wife knew that I had
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Off on a Comet by Jules Verne: prospect of any of them perishing by starvation.
From the 6th to the 13th of January the rain came down
in torrents; and, what was quite an unusual occurrence at this
season of the year, several heavy storms broke over the island.
In spite, however, of the continual downfall, the heavens still
remained veiled in cloud. Servadac, moreover, did not fail to observe
that for the season the temperature was unusually high; and, as a matter
still more surprising, that it kept steadily increasing, as though
the earth were gradually and continuously approximating to the sun.
In proportion to the rise of temperature, the light also assumed
greater intensity; and if it had not been for the screen of vapor
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