| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: Another, strangely, recalls a silent man. And yet it was not din
that was wanting; in fact, it was terrific. That one was a gale
that came upon the ship swiftly, like a parnpero, which last is a
very sudden wind indeed. Before we knew very well what was coming
all the sails we had set had burst; the furled ones were blowing
loose, ropes flying, sea hissing - it hissed tremendously - wind
howling, and the ship lying on her side, so that half of the crew
were swimming and the other half clawing desperately at whatever
came to hand, according to the side of the deck each man had been
caught on by the catastrophe, either to leeward or to windward.
The shouting I need not mention - it was the merest drop in an
The Mirror of the Sea |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Before Adam by Jack London: incoherence, likewise, the doings of the Fire People
and the Tree People, and the gibbering councils of the
horde. For you know not the peace of the cool caves in
the cliffs, the circus of the drinking-places at the
end of the day. You have never felt the bite of the
morning wind in the tree-tops, nor is the taste of
young bark sweet in your mouth.
It would be better, I dare say, for you to make your
approach, as I made mine, through my childhood. As a
boy I was very like other boys--in my waking hours. It
was in my sleep that I was different. From my earliest
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: to avoid them. But already every window was open, and heads were
thrust forth right and left, while from every door came shouts and
gleams of light. Diard kept on, going straight before him, through the
lights and the noise; and his legs were so actively agile that he soon
left the tumult behind him, though without being able to escape some
eyes which took in the extent of his course more rapidly than he could
cover it. Inhabitants, soldiers, gendarmes, every one, seemed afoot in
the twinkling of an eye. Some men awoke the commissaries of police,
others stayed by the body to guard it. The pursuit kept on in the
direction of the fugitive, who dragged it after him like the flame of
a conflagration.
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