| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Falk by Joseph Conrad: bushes, peered without conviction into a ditch or
two. There was not a sound: patches of slime glim-
mered feebly amongst the reeds. Slowly we trudged
back, drooping under the thin sickle of the moon,
and I heard him mutter to himself, "Himmel! Zwei
und dreissig Pfund!" He was impressed by the
figure of my loss. For a long time we had ceased to
hear the mate's whoops and yells.
Then he said to me, "Everybody has his troub-
les," and as we went on remarked that he would
never have known anything of mine hadn't he by an
Falk |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: The banquet and the ball were given on a first floor above a wineshop
in the Rue de Charenton. It was a large room, lighted by oil lamps
with tin reflectors. A row of wooden benches ran round the walls,
which were black with grime to the height of the tables. Here some
eighty persons, all in their Sunday best, tricked out with ribbons and
bunches of flowers, all of them on pleasure bent, were dancing away
with heated visages as if the world were about to come to an end.
Bride and bridegroom exchanged salutes to the general satisfaction,
amid a chorus of facetious "Oh, ohs!" and "Ah, ahs!" less really
indecent than the furtive glances of young girls that have been well
brought up. There was something indescribably infectious about the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: into the whirl of California, deprived of any guidance, and left
to draw my own conclusions. Protect me from the wrath of an
outraged community if these letters be ever read by American
eyes! San Francisco is a mad city--inhabited for the most part
by perfectly insane people, whose women are of a remarkable
beauty.
When the "City of Pekin" steamed through the Golden Gate, I saw
with great joy that the block-house which guarded the mouth of
the "finest harbor in the world, sir," could be silenced by two
gunboats from Hong Kong with safety, comfort, and despatch.
Also, there was not a single American vessel of war in the
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