| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: A little before supper, feeling more restless than ever, I rejoined,
for a moment, my second self. And to find him sitting so quietly
was surprising, like something against nature, inhuman.
I developed my plan in a hurried whisper.
"I shall stand in as close as I dare and then put her round.
I will presently find means to smuggle you out of here
into the sail locker, which communicates with the lobby.
But there is an opening, a sort of square for hauling the sails out,
which gives straight on the quarter-deck and which is never
closed in fine weather, so as to give air to the sails.
When the ship's way is deadened in stays and all the hands
The Secret Sharer |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: XI. The Open Fire
XII. A Slumber Song
FISHERMAN'S LUCK
Has it ever fallen in your way to notice the quality of the
greetings that belong to certain occupations?
There is something about these salutations in kind which is
singularly taking and grateful to the ear. They are as much better
than an ordinary "good day" or a flat "how are you?" as a folk-song
of Scotland or the Tyrol is better than the futile love-ditty of the
drawing-room. They have a spicy and rememberable flavour. They
speak to the imagination and point the way to treasure-trove.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Where There's A Will by Mary Roberts Rinehart: "I guess from that your father isn't crazy about it," I remarked,
getting her a glass of spring water. The papers had been full of
how Mr. Jennings had forbidden the prince the house when he had
been in America the summer before.
"Certainly he's crazy about it--almost insane!" she said, and
smiled at me in her old way over the top of the glass. Then she
put down the glass and came over to me. "Minnie, Minnie," she
said, "if you only knew how I've wanted to get away from the
newspapers and the gossips and come to this smelly little spring-
house and talk things over with a red-haired, sharp-tongued,
mean-dispositioned spring-house girl--!"
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