| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The War in the Air by H. G. Wells: Smallways who tramped from Cardiff to London vaguely "going
home," vaguely seeking something of his own that had no tangible
form but Edna, was a very different person from the Desert
Dervish who was swept out of England in Mr. Butteridge's balloon
a year before. He was brown and lean and enduring, steady-eyed
and pestilence-salted, and his mouth, which had once hung open,
shut now like a steel trap. Across his brow ran a white scar
that he had got in a fight on the brig. In Cardiff he had felt
the need of new clothes and a weapon, and had, by means that
would have shocked him a year ago, secured a flannel shirt, a
corduroy suit, and a revolver and fifty cartridges from an
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: "Madame, in Asia your feet would be worth some ten thousand
sequins.
"A traveller's compliment!" smiled she.
It pleased the sprightly lady to involve a rough soldier in a
labyrinth of nonsense, commonplaces, and meaningless talk, in
which he manoeuvred, in military language, as Prince Charles
might have done at close quarters with Napoleon. She took a
mischievous amusement in reconnoitring the extent of his
infatuation by the number of foolish speeches extracted from a
novice whom she led step by step into a hopeless maze, meaning to
leave him there in confusion. She began by laughing at him, but
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer: A girl was performing a sinuous dance upon the square carpet occupying
the center of the floor, accompanied by a young negro woman upon
a guitar and by several members of the assembly who clapped their
hands to the music or hummed a low, monotonous melody.
Shortly after our entrance into the passage the dance terminated,
and the dancer fled through a curtained door at the farther end of the room.
A buzz of conversation arose.
"It is a sort of combined Wekaleh and place of entertainment for a certain
class of Oriental residents in, or visiting, London," Smith whispered.
"The old gentleman who has just left us is the proprietor or host.
I have been here before on several occasions, but have always drawn blank."
The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu |
