| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: "The 'Lass of Gowrie' from inside of a seed-drill--what a
phenomenon!"
Satisfied at last with his investigation the young man stood
upright, and met their eyes across the summit.
"We are looking at the wonderful new drill," Miss Templeman
said. "But practically it is a stupid thing--is it not?"
she added, on the strength of Henchard's information.
"Stupid? O no!" said Farfrae gravely. "It will
revolutionize sowing heerabout! No more sowers flinging
their seed about broadcast, so that some falls by the
wayside and some among thorns, and all that. Each grain
The Mayor of Casterbridge |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: It wasn't a bit true I had ceased to care for knowledge; little by
little my curiosity not only had begun to ache again, but had
become the familiar torment of my days and my nights. There are
doubtless people to whom torments of such an order appear hardly
more natural than the contortions of disease; but I don't after all
know why I should in this connexion so much as mention them. For
the few persons, at any rate, abnormal or not, with whom my
anecdote is concerned, literature was a game of skill, and skill
meant courage, and courage meant honour, and honour meant passion,
meant life. The stake on the table was of a special substance and
our roulette the revolving mind, but we sat round the green board
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Moon-Face and Other Stories by Jack London: And at black midnight, from the lonely cross-roads where he turned from town
into his own place, came his plaguey cachinnations to rouse me from my sleep
and make me writhe and clench my nails into my palms.
I went forth privily in the night-time, and turned his cattle into his fields,
and in the morning heard his whooping laugh as he drove them out again. "It is
nothing," he said; "the poor, dumb beasties are not to be blamed for straying
into fatter pastures."
He had a dog he called "Mars," a big, splendid brute, part deer-hound and part
blood-hound, and resembling both. Mars was a great delight to him, and they
were always together. But I bided my time, and one day, when opportunity was
ripe, lured the animal away and settled for him with strychnine and beefsteak.
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