| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard: there was a space of seven or eight yards. And here, on this
beach, we determined to land, in order to rest ourselves a little
after all that we had gone through and to stretch our limbs.
It was a dreadful place, but it would give an hour's respite
from the terrors of the river, and also allow of our repacking
and arranging the canoe. Accordingly we selected what looked
like a favourable spot, and with some little difficulty managed
to beach the canoe and scramble out on to the round, inhospitable
pebbles.
'My word,' called out Good, who was on shore the first, 'what
an awful place! It's enough to give one a fit.' And he laughed.
Allan Quatermain |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: I began to fear that piloting was not quite so romantic as I
had imagined it was; there was something very real and work-like
about this new phase of it.
It was a rather dingy night, although a fair number of stars were out.
The big mate was at the wheel, and he had the old tub pointed at
a star and was holding her straight up the middle of the river.
The shores on either hand were not much more than half a mile apart,
but they seemed wonderfully far away and ever so vague and indistinct.
The mate said:--
'We've got to land at Jones's plantation, sir.'
The vengeful spirit in me exulted. I said to myself,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Little Britain by Washington Irving: years,
when, having become rich, and grown into the dignity of a
Sunday cane, he begins to take his pleasure and see the world.
He has therefore made several excursions to Hampstead,
Highgate, and other neighboring towns, where he has passed
whole afternoons in looking back upon the metropolis through
a telescope, and endeavoring to descry the steeple of St.
Bartholomew's. Not a stage-coachman of Bull-and-Mouth
Street but touches his hat as he passes; and he is considered
quite a patron at the coach-office of the Goose and Gridiron,
St. Paul's churchyard. His family have been very urgent for
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