| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from McTeague by Frank Norris: coffee and ice-cream stains and spots of congealed gravy
marked the position of each plate. It was a devastation, a
pillage; the table presented the appearance of an abandoned
battlefield.
"Ouf," cried Mrs. Sieppe, pushing back, "I haf eatun und
eatun, ach, Gott, how I haf eatun!"
"Ah, dot kaf's het," murmured her husband, passing his
tongue over his lips.
The facetious waiter had disappeared. He and Maria
Macapa foregathered in the kitchen. They drew up to the
washboard of the sink, feasting off the remnants of the
McTeague |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: I left Edinburgh, however, with not the least idea that I had
done a stroke of excellent business for myself, and singly
delighted to escape out of a somewhat dreary house and plunge
instead into the rainbow city of Paris. Every man has his own
romance; mine clustered exclusively about the practice of the
arts, the life of Latin Quarter students, and the world of Paris as
depicted by that grimy wizard, the author of the _Comedie
Humaine_. I was not disappointed--I could not have been; for I
did not see the facts, I brought them with me ready-made. Z.
Marcas lived next door to me in my ungainly, ill-smelling hotel
of the Rue Racine; I dined at my villainous restaurant with
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Finished by H. Rider Haggard: circumstances. If so, I daresay that they were wise, but of
course it may have been only carelessness. it is so easy for
busy and fashionable folk not to answer a rather troublesome
letter, or to forget to put that answer in the post. Or, indeed,
the letter may never have reached them--such things often go
astray, especially when people live abroad. At any rate, perhaps
through my own fault, we have drifted apart. I daresay they
believe that I am dead, or not to be found somewhere in Africa.
However, I always think of them with affection, for Anscombe was
one of the best travelling companions I ever had, and his wife a
most charming girl, and wonder whether Zikali's prophecy about
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