| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Off on a Comet by Jules Verne: before them, but a general sense of the strangeness of their situation
could not fail at times to weigh heavily upon the minds of all.
Under these circumstances it was very necessary to counteract the tendency
to de-spond by continual diversion; and the recreation of skating thus
opportunely provided, seemed just the thing to arouse the flagging spirits,
and to restore a wholesome excitement.
With dogged obstinacy, Isaac Hakkabut refused to take any
share either in the labors or the amusements of the colony.
In spite of the cold, he had not been seen since the day
of his arrival from Gourbi Island. Captain Servadac
had strictly forbidden any communication with him;
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: unfamiliar sound, as of a colossal cannonade rolling up from the
south, with volleying lightnings. Vastly and swiftly, nearer and
nearer it came,--a ponderous and unbroken thunder-roll, terrible
as the long muttering of an earthquake.
The nearest mainland,--across mad Caillou Bay to the
sea-marshes,--lay twelve miles north; west, by the Gulf, the
nearest solid ground was twenty miles distant. There were boats,
yes!--but the stoutest swimmer might never reach them now!
Then rose a frightful cry,--the hoarse, hideous, indescribable
cry of hopeless fear,--the despairing animal-cry man utters when
suddenly brought face to face with Nothingness, without
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: received, and which you must have thought extremely unbecoming, was
not intended for you."
The marquise could not help smiling, though she wished to seem
offended.
"Why deceive?" she said, with a disdainful air, although the tones of
her voice were gentle. "Now that I have duly scolded you, I am willing
to laugh at a subterfuge which is not without cleverness. I know many
women who would be taken in by it: 'Heavens! how he loves me!' they
would say."
Here the marquise gave a forced laugh, and then added, in a tone of
indulgence:--
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