| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Kenilworth by Walter Scott: disadvantages which might attend her occasional residence at the
royal seat of Woodstock, seemed to show that he had most
earnestly investigated the matter of the petition of the
inhabitants, and with a desire to forward the interest of the
place.
"Now the Lord love his noble countenance!" said the bailiff, who
had thrust himself into the presence-chamber; "he looks somewhat
pale. I warrant him he hath spent the whole night in perusing
our memorial. Master Toughyarn, who took six months to draw it
up, said it would take a week to understand it; and see if the
Earl hath not knocked the marrow out of it in twenty-four hours!"
Kenilworth |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: of mats, of leaves, of a vegetable-matter style of
architecture, sprung out of the brown soil on the
banks of the muddy river. It was amazing to think
that in those miles of human habitations there was
not probably half a dozen pounds of nails. Some
of those houses of sticks and grass, like the nests of
an aquatic race, clung to the low shores. Others
seemed to grow out of the water; others again
floated in long anchored rows in the very middle of
the stream. Here and there in the distance, above
the crowded mob of low, brown roof ridges, towered
The Shadow Line |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Heritage of the Desert by Zane Grey: friend at the end! For Hare remembered the blow, and never would he
forget Dave's last words. Yet unforgetable as these were, it was duty
rather than revenge that called him. This was August Naab's hour of
need. Hare knew himself to be the tool of inscrutable fate; he was the
one to fight the old desert-scarred Mormon's battle. Hare recalled how
humbly he had expressed his gratitude to Naab, and the apparent
impossibility of ever repaying him, and then Naab's reply: "Lad, you can
never tell how one man may repay another." Hare could pay his own debt
and that of the many wanderers who had drifted across the sands to find a
home with the Mormon. These men stirred in their graves, and from out
the shadow of the cliff whispered the voice of Mescal's nameless father:
The Heritage of the Desert |
