| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: country of sands and terrors. Many even were unwilling to advance
further. Others started back to Carthage.
At last on the seventh day, after following the base of a mountain for
a long time, they turned abruptly to the right, and there then
appeared a line of walls resting on white rocks and blending with
them. Suddenly the entire city rose; blue, yellow, and white veils
moved on the walls in the redness of the evening. These were the
priestesses of Tanith, who had hastened hither to receive the men.
They stood ranged along the rampart, striking tabourines, playing
lyres, and shaking crotala, while the rays of the sun, setting behind
them in the mountains of Numidia, shot between the strings of their
Salammbo |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: "No sooner had we fairly entered it than I became aware it was much
narrower than I had supposed. To the left of us there was the long
uninterrupted shoal, and to the right a high, steep bank heavily
overgrown with bushes. Above the bush the trees stood in serried ranks.
The twigs overhung the current thickly, and from distance to distance
a large limb of some tree projected rigidly over the stream.
It was then well on in the afternoon, the face of the forest was gloomy,
and a broad strip of shadow had already fallen on the water.
In this shadow we steamed up--very slowly, as you may imagine.
I sheered her well inshore--the water being deepest near the bank,
as the sounding-pole informed me.
Heart of Darkness |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Last War: A World Set Free by H. G. Wells: raised above the court, wearing a preposterous gown and a foolish
huge wig, the counsel also wore dirty-looking little wigs and
queer black gowns over their usual costume, wigs and gowns that
were held to be necessary to their pleading, and upon unclean
wooden benches stirred and whispered artful-looking solicitors,
busily scribbling reporters, the parties to the case, expert
witnesses, interested people, and a jostling confusion of
subpoenaed persons, briefless young barristers (forming a style
on the most esteemed and truculent examples) and casual eccentric
spectators who preferred this pit of iniquity to the free
sunlight outside. Every one was damply hot, the examining King's
The Last War: A World Set Free |
