| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from When the Sleeper Wakes by H. G. Wells: the merging of the separate households in his
own generation was simply the still imperfect civilisation
of the people, the strong barbaric pride, passions,
and prejudices, the jealousies, rivalries, and violence
of the middle and lower classes, which had necessitated
the entire separation of contiguous households. But
the change, the taming of the people, had been in
rapid progress even then. In his brief thirty years of
previous life he had seen an enormous extension of
the habit of consuming meals from home, the casually
patronised horse-box coffee-house had given place to
When the Sleeper Wakes |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: very presence on the spot another link of proof. It was plain she
was about to speak, but this was more than he could bear - he could
bear to be lost, but not to talk of it with his destroyer; and he
cut her short with trivial conversation. Arm in arm, they returned
together to the train, talking he knew not what, made the journey
back in the same carriage, sat down to dinner, and passed the
evening in the drawing-room as in the past. But suspense and fear
drummed in the dreamer's bosom. "She has not denounced me yet" -
so his thoughts ran - "when will she denounce me? Will it be to-
morrow?" And it was not to-morrow, nor the next day, nor the next;
and their life settled back on the old terms, only that she seemed
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: were, in the midst of a torrent, which deafened them by its
roaring, but might not move them by its violence. The clergyman,
who could not hitherto have ejected the usurper of his pulpit
otherwise than by bodily force, now addressed her in the tone of
just indignation and legitimate authority.
"Get you down, woman, from the holy place which you profane," he
said. "Is it to the Lord's house that you come to pour forth the
foulness of your heart and the inspiration of the devil? Get you
down, and remember that the sentence of death is on you; yea, and
shall be executed, were it but for this day's work!"
"I go, friend, I go, for the voice hath had its utterance,"
Twice Told Tales |
