| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Octopus by Frank Norris: the track beyond. Smoke, black and boiling, shot skyward from
the stack; not a joint that did not shudder with the mighty
strain of the steam; hut the great iron brute--one of Baldwin's
newest and best--came to call, obedient and docile as soon as
ever the great pulsing heart of it felt a master hand upon its
levers. It gathered its speed, bracing its steel muscles, its
thews of iron, and roared out upon the open track, filling the
air with the rasp of its tempest-breath, blotting the sunshine
with the belch of its hot, thick smoke. Already it was lessening
in the distance, when Delaney, Christian, and the sheriff of
Visalia dashed up to the station.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from To-morrow by Joseph Conrad: "No, but the sea is great."
She dropped her head, and as if her ears had
been opened to the voices of the world, she heard,
beyond the rampart of sea-wall, the swell of yester-
day's gale breaking on the beach with monotonous
and solemn vibrations, as if all the earth had been
a tolling bell.
"And then, why, a ship's a ship. You love her
and leave her; and a voyage isn't a marriage." He
quoted the sailor's saying lightly.
"It is not a marriage," she whispered.
To-morrow |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: taken the rooms one by one as they fell vacant. In his own room he had
changed nothing; the furniture which I knew so well sixteen years ago
looked the same as ever; it might have been kept under a glass case.
Gobseck's faithful old portress, with her husband, a pensioner, who
sat in the entry while she was upstairs, was still his housekeeper and
charwoman, and now in addition his sick-nurse. In spite of his
feebleness, Gobseck saw his clients himself as heretofore, and
received sums of money; his affairs had been so simplified, that he
only needed to send his pensioner out now and again on an errand, and
could carry on business in his bed.
"After the treaty, by which France recognized the Haytian Republic,
Gobseck |
