| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: to spend the night on deck. Unjust as this regulation was,
it did not trouble us much; we had fared much harder before.
We arrived at Newport the next morning, and soon after an
old fashioned stage-coach, with "New Bedford" in large yellow letters
on its sides, came down to the wharf. I had not money enough to pay our fare,
and stood hesitating what to do. Fortunately for us, there were two
Quaker gentlemen who were about to take passage on the stage,--
Friends William C. Taber and Joseph Ricketson,--who at once discerned
our true situation, and, in a peculiarly quiet way, addressing me,
Mr. Taber said: "Thee get in." I never obeyed an order with more alacrity,
and we were soon on our way to our new home. When we reached "Stone Bridge"
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: hands as though it had been alive, with such force that it went for
some distance on its four legs, making a loud, scraping racket,
whilst the big dish with the joint crashed heavily on the floor.
Then all became still. Mrs Verloc on reaching the door had
stopped. A round hat disclosed in the middle of the floor by the
moving of the table rocked slightly on its crown in the wind of her
flight.
CHAPTER XII
Winnie Verloc, the widow of Mr Verloc, the sister of the late
faithful Stevie (blown to fragments in a state of innocence and in
the conviction of being engaged in a humanitarian enterprise), did
The Secret Agent |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: still existed poisoned her very life. When he had been seized and
bound with cords, the soldiers were prepared to stab him if he
resisted, but he had been quite gentle and obedient. After he had been
thrown into prison some one had put venomous serpents into his
dungeon, but strange to say, after a time they had died, leaving him
uninjured. The inanity of such tricks exasperated Herodias. Besides,
she inquired, why did this man make war upon her? What interest moved
him to such actions? His injurious words to her, uttered before a
throng of listeners, had been repeated and widely circulated; she
heard them whispered everywhere. Against a legion of soldiers she
would have been brave; but this mysterious influence, more pernicious
Herodias |
