| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: Gatsby's splendid car was included in their sombre holiday. As we
crossed Blackwell's Island a limousine passed us, driven by a white
chauffeur, in which sat three modish negroes, two bucks and a girl. I
laughed aloud as the yolks of their eyeballs rolled toward us in
haughty rivalry.
"Anything can happen now that we've slid over this bridge," I thought;
"anything at all. . . ."
Even Gatsby could happen, without any particular wonder.
Roaring noon. In a well--fanned Forty-second Street cellar I met Gatsby
for lunch. Blinking away the brightness of the street outside, my eyes
picked him out obscurely in the anteroom, talking to another man.
The Great Gatsby |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: "Have you told Mr. Phillotson about this university scholar friend?"
"Yes--long ago. I have never made any secret of it to anybody."
"What did he say?"
"He did not pass any criticism--only said I was everything to him,
whatever I did; and things like that."
Jude felt much depressed; she seemed to get further and further away
from him with her strange ways and curious unconsciousness of gender.
"Aren't you REALLY vexed with me, dear Jude?" she suddenly asked,
in a voice of such extraordinary tenderness that it hardly seemed
to come from the same woman who had just told her story so lightly.
"I would rather offend anybody in the world than you, I think!"
Jude the Obscure |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: then called, was standing among the chief priests and disputing
with them, for I had seen her bow her head at the door of the holy
place, and thought that it was in token of farewell, seeing that
she was the last of the four women to leave me. Of what she
disputed I could not hear because of the din of battle, but the
argument was keen and it seemed to me that the priests were
somewhat dismayed at her words, and yet had a fierce joy in them.
It appeared also that she won her cause, for presently they bowed
in obeisance to her, and turning slowly she swept to my side with a
peculiar majesty of gait that even then I noted. Glancing up at
her face also, I saw that it was alight as though with a great and
Montezuma's Daughter |
