| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac: stranger; there was no mistaking the anxiety in the man's face, the
ardent entreaty in his eyes.
"Very well," returned the abbe. "Come back at midnight. I shall be
ready to celebrate the only funeral service that it is in our power to
offer in expiation of the crime of which you speak."
A quiver ran through the stranger, but a sweet yet sober satisfaction
seemed to prevail over a hidden anguish. He took his leave
respectfully, and the three generous souls felt his unspoken
gratitude.
Two hours later, he came back and tapped at the garret door.
Mademoiselle de Beauseant showed the way into the second room of their
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: ing the way to an outhouse at a little distance from
his other farm-buildings.
"It was there that I saw him first, in a long low
room taken upon the space of that sort of coach-
house. It was bare and whitewashed, with a small
square aperture glazed with one cracked, dusty
pane at its further end. He was lying on his back
upon a straw pallet; they had given him a couple
of horse-blankets, and he seemed to have spent the
remainder of his strength in the exertion of clean-
ing himself. He was almost speechless; his quick
Amy Foster |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: She thought a minute. "Was he a gentleman?"
I found I had no need to think. "No." She gazed in deeper wonder. "No."
"Then nobody about the place? Nobody from the village?"
"Nobody--nobody. I didn't tell you, but I made sure."
She breathed a vague relief: this was, oddly, so much to the good.
It only went indeed a little way. "But if he isn't a gentleman--"
"What IS he? He's a horror."
"A horror?"
"He's--God help me if I know WHAT he is!"
Mrs. Grose looked round once more; she fixed her eyes on the duskier distance,
then, pulling herself together, turned to me with abrupt inconsequence.
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