| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: vision of an episode not more than a fortnight old. With eyes
whose pupils were extremely dilated she stared at the vision of her
husband and poor Stevie walking up Brett Street side by side away
from the shop. It was the last scene of an existence created by
Mrs Verloc's genius; an existence foreign to all grace and charm,
without beauty and almost without decency, but admirable in the
continuity of feeling and tenacity of purpose. And this last
vision has such plastic relief, such nearness of form, such a
fidelity of suggestive detail, that it wrung from Mrs Verloc an
anguished and faint murmur, reproducing the supreme illusion of her
life, an appalled murmur that died out on her blanched lips.
The Secret Agent |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: spinning-wheel at one end, and a churn at the other, showed the
various uses to which this important porch might be devoted. From
this piazza the wondering Ichabod entered the hall, which formed
the centre of the mansion, and the place of usual residence. Here
rows of resplendent pewter, ranged on a long dresser, dazzled his
eyes. In one corner stood a huge bag of wool, ready to be spun;
in another, a quantity of linsey-woolsey just from the loom; ears
of Indian corn, and strings of dried apples and peaches, hung in
gay festoons along the walls, mingled with the gaud of red
peppers; and a door left ajar gave him a peep into the best
parlor, where the claw-footed chairs and dark mahogany tables
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Two Noble Kinsmen by William Shakespeare: I know you, y'ar a Tinker: Sirha Tinker,
Stop no more holes, but what you should.
SCHOOLMASTER.
Dij boni. A Tinker, Damzell?
DAUGHTER.
Or a Conjurer:
Raise me a devill now, and let him play
Quipassa o'th bels and bones.
SCHOOLMASTER.
Goe, take her,
And fluently perswade her to a peace:
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