| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne: clumps of forest trees in the distance, presented a weird and
wonderful aspect under these totally new conditions of a universal
diffusion of light. We were like Hoffmann's shadowless man.
After walking a mile we reached the outskirts of a vast forest, but
not one of those forests of fungi which bordered Port Gräuben.
Here was the vegetation of the tertiary period in its fullest blaze
of magnificence. Tall palms, belonging to species no longer living,
splendid palmacites, firs, yews, cypress trees, thujas,
representatives of the conifers. were linked together by a tangled
network of long climbing plants. A soft carpet of moss and hepaticas
luxuriously clothed the soil. A few sparkling streams ran almost in
Journey to the Center of the Earth |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: hearing from the master of the cafe that "these gentlemen" breakfasted
habitually between eleven and twelve o'clock.
"Between eleven and half-past," he said when he related his adventures
to his cronies in the provinces, "two Parisians dressed in simple
frock-coats, looking like NOTHING AT ALL, called out when they saw me
on the boulevard, 'There's our Gazonal!'"
The speaker was Bixiou, with whom Leon de Lora had armed himself to
"bring out" his provincial cousin, in other words, to make him pose.
"'Don't be vexed, cousin, I'm at your service!' cried out that little
Leon, taking me in his arms," related Gazonal on his return home. "The
breakfast was splendid. I thought I was going blind when I saw the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: Who's that grunting? You wonder I didn't go ashore for a howl
and a dance? Well, no--I didn't. Fine sentiments, you say?
Fine sentiments, be hanged! I had no time. I had to mess
about with white-lead and strips of woolen blanket helping
to put bandages on those leaky steam-pipes--I tell you.
I had to watch the steering, and circumvent those snags,
and get the tin-pot along by hook or by crook. There was
surface-truth enough in these things to save a wiser man.
And between whiles I had to look after the savage who was fireman.
He was an improved specimen; he could fire up a vertical boiler.
He was there below me, and, upon my word, to look at him
Heart of Darkness |
