| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: Chapter 4
On Sunday morning while church bells rang in the villages alongshore,
the world and its mistress returned to Gatsby's house and twinkled
hilariously on his lawn.
"He's a bootlegger," said the young ladies, moving somewhere between
his cocktails and his flowers. "One time he killed a man who had found out
that he was nephew to Von Hindenburg and second cousin to the devil.
Reach me a rose, honey, and pour me a last drop into that there crystal
glass."
Once I wrote down on the empty spaces of a time-table the names
of those who came to Gatsby's house that summer. It is an old time-table
The Great Gatsby |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Kidnapped Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum: making. What a shame it is that they should interfere with your
business! They make toys by machinery much quicker than you can make
them by hand; and they sell them for money, while you get nothing at
all for your work."
But Santa Claus refused to be envious of the toy shops.
"I can supply the little ones but once a year--on Christmas Eve," he
answered; "for the children are many, and I am but one. And as my
work is one of love and kindness I would be ashamed to receive money
for my little gifts. But throughout all the year the children must be
amused in some way, and so the toy shops are able to bring much
happiness to my little friends. I like the toy shops, and am glad to
A Kidnapped Santa Claus |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: to be quite grown up. I have already three chapters about as good
as done; by which, of course, as you know, I mean till further
notice or the next discovery. I like biography far better than
fiction myself: fiction is too free. In biography you have your
little handful of facts, little bits of a puzzle, and you sit and
think, and fit 'em together this way and that, and get up and throw
'em down, and say damn, and go out for a walk. And it's real
soothing; and when done, gives an idea of finish to the writer that
is very peaceful. Of course, it's not really so finished as quite
a rotten novel; it always has and always must have the incurable
illogicalities of life about it, the fathoms of slack and the miles
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