| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: he had suffered himself to be put away. Why, he would have given
up every prospect of life, if he had done otherwise! Yet he
wondered bitterly if she had thought him selfish,--if she thought
it was money he cared for, as the others did. It mattered
nothing what they thought, but it wounded him intolerably that
she should wrong him. Yet, with all this, whenever he looked
forward to death, it was with the certainty that he should find
her there beyond. There would be no secrets then; she would know
then how he had loved her always. Loved her? Yes; he need not
hide it from himself, surely.
He was now by the door of the office;-- she was within. Little
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from When the World Shook by H. Rider Haggard: thousands of men were vomited, who ran forward through a hail of
fire in which scores and hundreds fell, across an open piece of
ground that was pitted with shell craters. They came to barbed
wire defenses, or what remained of them, cut the wire with
nippers and pulled up the posts. Then through the gaps they
surged in, shouting and hurling hand grenades. They reached the
German trenches, they leapt into them and from those holes arose
a hellish din. Pistols were fired and everywhere bayonets
flashed.
Behind them rushed a horde of little, dark-skinned men, Indians
who carried great knives in their hands. Those leapt over the
When the World Shook |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane: be lost. If the din meant that now his army's
flags were tilted forward he was a condemned
wretch. He would be compelled to doom
himself to isolation. If the men were advancing,
their indifferent feet were trampling upon his
chances for a successful life.
As these thoughts went rapidly through his
mind, he turned upon them and tried to thrust
them away. He denounced himself as a villain.
He said that he was the most unutterably selfish
man in existence. His mind pictured the soldiers
The Red Badge of Courage |
