| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: Watson stayin' in the lodge nights an' me lookin' fer work at de
club."
"Did Mrs. Watson say that anything had happened to alarm her?"
"No, sah. She was jes' natchally skeered. Well, that was all,
far's I know, until the night I come over to see Mis' Innes. I
come across the valley, along the path from the club-house, and I
goes home that way. Down in the creek bottom I almost run into a
man. He wuz standin' with his back to me, an' he was workin'
with one of these yere electric light things that fit in yer
pocket. He was havin' trouble--one minute it'd flash out, an'
the nex' it'd be gone. I hed a view of 'is white dress shirt an'
The Circular Staircase |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: I know what I am saying when I affirm that there is nothing more
intolerable than to have to be polite, and even humble, to persons whose
weaknesses and follies are glaringly apparent in every word they utter,
and to be forced by the presence of children and employers to a dignity
of manner in no way corresponding to one's feelings. The grave father
of a family, who was probably one of the least respectable of bachelors,
is an interesting study at his own table, where he is constrained to assume
airs of infallibility merely because his children are looking at him.
The fact of his being a parent does not endow him with any supreme and
sudden virtue; and I can assure you that among the eyes fixed upon him,
not the least critical and amused are those of the humble person who fills
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: "What's going on in that river you've just come out of?" asked the
lieutenant straight away.
"I know nothing of the troubles, if you mean that," Jasper
answered. "I've landed there half a cargo of rice, for which I got
nothing in exchange, and went away. There's no trade there now,
but they would have been starving in another week - if I hadn't
turned up."
"Meddling! English meddling! And suppose the rascals don't
deserve anything better than to starve, eh?"
"There are women and children there, you know," observed Jasper, in
his even tone.
'Twixt Land & Sea |
