| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: riding the trail met a jack-rabbit sitting in a cactus," or
"'Bout the time of the San Diego land boom, a woman from
Monterey," etc.
You can try to piece out for yourselves what sort of stories they
were.
IV
The Yellowstone
ONCE upon a time there was a carter who brought his team and a
friend into the Yellowstone Park without due thought. Presently
they came upon a few of the natural beauties of the place, and
that carter turned his team into his friend's team,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: drowsy tale of fathoms, was calling out the soundings
in feet.
"Fifteen feet. Fifteen, fifteen! Fourteen, four-
teen . . ."
Captain Whalley lowered the arm holding the glasses.
It descended slowly as if by its own weight; no other
part of his towering body stirred; and the swift cries
with their eager warning note passed him by as though
he had been deaf.
Massy, very still, and turning an attentive ear, had
fastened his eyes upon the silvery, close-cropped back
End of the Tether |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: vigil had at a given moment made out, and she had then offered him
the chance to baffle his doom. One's doom, however, was never
baffled, and on the day she told him his own had come down she had
seen him but stupidly stare at the escape she offered him.
The escape would have been to love her; then, THEN he would have
lived. SHE had lived--who could say now with what passion?--since
she had loved him for himself; whereas he had never thought of her
(ah how it hugely glared at him!) but in the chill of his egotism
and the light of her use. Her spoken words came back to him--the
chain stretched and stretched. The Beast had lurked indeed, and
the Beast, at its hour, had sprung; it had sprung in that twilight
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