| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: flourish of eloquence in Shakespeare's second manner, and set
it side by side with Falstaff's praise of sherris, act iv.
scene iii.; or let us compare the beautiful prose spoken
throughout by Rosalind and Orlando; compare, for example, the
first speech of all, Orlando's speech to Adam, with what
passage it shall please you to select - the Seven Ages from
the same play, or even such a stave of nobility as Othello's
farewell to war; and still you will be able to perceive, if
you have an ear for that class of music, a certain superior
degree of organisation in the prose; a compacter fitting of
the parts; a balance in the swing and the return as of a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Enchanted Island of Yew by L. Frank Baum: enemies. How little one can tell from appearances what sort of heart
beats in a person's body!"
Before Nerle could answer the two doors opened and two pairs of
soldiers entered. They drew two small tables before the prince and
two before Nerle, and then other pairs of twin soldiers came and
spread cloths on the tables and set twin platters of meat and bread
and fruit on each of the tables. When the meal had been arranged the
prisoners saw that there was enough for four people instead of two;
and the soldiers realized this also, for they turned puzzled looks
first on the tables and then on the prisoners. Then they shook all their
twin heads gravely and went away, locking the twin doors behind them.
The Enchanted Island of Yew |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: yourself yesterday, you know."
She strayed back from sunlit distances. "Yesterday?"
"Yes: that Grace Fulmer says you can't separate two people
who've been through a lot of things--"
"Ah, been through them together--it's not the things, you see,
it's the togetherness," she interrupted.
"The togetherness--that's it!" He seized on the word as if it
had just been coined to express their case, and his mind could
rest in it without farther labour.
The door-bell rang, and they started. Through the window they
saw the taxi-driver gesticulating enquiries as to the fate of
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