The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Betty Zane by Zane Grey: Jonathan and Silas Zane, early in the day, had taken different directions
along the river to keep a sharp lookout for signs of the enemy. Colonel Zane
intended to stay in his oven house and defend it, so he had not moved anything
to the fort excepting his horses and cattle. Old Sam, the negro, was hauling
loads of hay inside the stockade. Captain Boggs had detailed several scouts to
watch the roads and one of these was the young man, Clarke, who had
accompanied the Major from Fort Pitt.
The appearance of Alfred Clarke, despite the fact that he wore the regulation
hunting garb, indicated a young man to whom the hard work and privation of the
settler were unaccustomed things. So thought the pioneers who noticed his
graceful walk, his fair skin and smooth hands. Yet those who carefully studied
Betty Zane |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Chouans by Honore de Balzac: Promenade, where the rock wall ended and a steep descent leading down
to the Queen's Staircase began. When Corentin reached the spot he saw
a figure gliding past it as if by magic. Putting out his hand to grasp
this real or fantastic being, who was there, he supposed, with no good
intentions, he encountered the soft and rounded figure of a woman.
"The devil take you!" he exclaimed, "if any one else had met you,
you'd have had a ball through your head. What are you doing, and where
are you going, at this time of night? Are you dumb? It certainly is a
woman," he said to himself.
The silence was suspicious, but the stranger broke it by saying, in a
voice which suggested extreme fright, "Ah, my good man, I'm on my way
The Chouans |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: so, after he had disputed awhile after the manner of his kind, the
shop-man gave Keawe sixty silver dollars for the thing, and set it
on a shelf in the midst of his window.
"Now," said Keawe, "I have sold that for sixty which I bought for
fifty - or, to say truth, a little less, because one of my dollars
was from Chili. Now I shall know the truth upon another point."
So he went back on board his ship, and, when he opened his chest,
there was the bottle, and had come more quickly than himself. Now
Keawe had a mate on board whose name was Lopaka.
"What ails you?" said Lopaka, "that you stare in your chest?"
They were alone in the ship's forecastle, and Keawe bound him to
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