| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Options by O. Henry: in, Onions."
After he had tapped at the door and entered, Hetty began to peel and
wash the onion at the sink. She gave a gray look at the gray roofs
outside, and the smile on her face vanished by little jerks and
twitches.
"But it's us," she said, grimly, to herself, "it's us that furnishes
the beef."
THE HIDING OF BLACK BILL
A lank, strong, red-faced man with a Wellington beak and small, fiery
eyes tempered by flaxen lashes, sat on the station platform at Los
Pinos swinging his legs to and fro. At his side sat another man, fat,
 Options |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost: was by his direction, as well as that of your mistress herself,
that your brother hit upon the moment for catching you unawares.
Now, you may congratulate yourself upon the duration of your
triumph. You know how to conquer, rapid enough; but you have yet
to learn how to secure your conquests.'
"I could no longer endure these remarks, every one of which
struck a dagger to my heart. I arose from the table, and had not
advanced four steps towards the door, when I fell upon the floor,
perfectly senseless. By prompt applications they soon brought me
to myself. My eyes opened only to shed a torrent of tears, and
my lips to utter the most sorrowful and heartrending complaints.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: Moscow that Mr. Nicholas B., in company of two brother
officers--as to whose morality and natural refinement I know
nothing--bagged a dog on the outskirts of a village and
subsequently devoured him. As far as I can remember the weapon
used was a cavalry sabre, and the issue of the sporting episode
was rather more of a matter of life and death than if it had been
an encounter with a tiger. A picket of Cossacks was sleeping in
that village lost in the depths of the great Lithuanian forest.
The three sportsmen had observed them from a hiding-place making
themselves very much at home among the huts just before the early
winter darkness set in at four o'clock. They had observed them
 A Personal Record |