| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Blix by Frank Norris: the thickness of a pencil, spun to hold the sullen plunges of a
jew-fish off the Catalina Islands, down to the sea-green gossamers
that a vigorous fingerling might snap; hooks, snells, guts,
leaders, gaffs, cartridges, shells, and all the entrancing
munitions of the sportsman, that savored of lonely canons, deer-
licks, mountain streams, quail uplands, and the still reaches of
inlet and marsh grounds, gray and cool in the early autumn dawn.
Condy and Blix got the attention of a clerk, and Condy explained.
"I want to go fishing--we want to go fishing. We want some place
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: air you breathe, of the soil you tread on, of the world that sees
you - moving free - not mine. But never mind. I rather liked him.
For a certain reason I proposed he should come to be my assistant
here. He said he believed this would save him. It did not save
him from death. It came to him as it were from nothing - just a
fall. A mere slip and tumble of ten feet into a ravine. But it
seems he had been hurt before up-country - by a horse. He ailed
and ailed. No, he was not a steel-tipped man. And his poor soul
seemed to have been damaged too. It gave way very soon."
"This is tragic!" Felicia Moorsom whispered with feeling.
Renouard's lips twitched, but his level voice continued
Within the Tides |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Happy Prince and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde: life-blood must flow into my veins, and become mine."
"Death is a great price to pay for a red rose," cried the
Nightingale, "and Life is very dear to all. It is pleasant to sit
in the green wood, and to watch the Sun in his chariot of gold, and
the Moon in her chariot of pearl. Sweet is the scent of the
hawthorn, and sweet are the bluebells that hide in the valley, and
the heather that blows on the hill. Yet Love is better than Life,
and what is the heart of a bird compared to the heart of a man?"
So she spread her brown wings for flight, and soared into the air.
She swept over the garden like a shadow, and like a shadow she
sailed through the grove.
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