| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: as one of her own snakes, only ten times more venomous and
spiteful; and glaring fiercely out of the blaze of the chariot,
she shook her hands over the multitude below, as if she were
scattering a million of curses among them. In so doing,
however, she unintentionally let fall about five hundred
diamonds of the first water, together with a thousand great
pearls, and two thousand emeralds, rubies, sapphires, opals,
and topazes, to which she had helped herself out of the king's
strong box. All these came pelting down, like a shower of many-
colored hailstones, upon the heads of grown people and
children, who forthwith gathered them up, and carried them back
Tanglewood Tales |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from 1492 by Mary Johntson: rich, the fruitful, easy Vega and the mountains they were
to pierce for gold and hunt over for a fierce mountain
chief. In the Vega they established themselves. The Indians
brought them ``tribute'', and they exacted over-tribute,
and reviled and slew when it pleased them, and they took
the Indian women, and if it pleased them they burned a
village. ``Sorry tale,'' said Luis. ``Old, sorry tale!''
Indians came to Isabella and with fierce gesture and eyes
that cast lances talked to Don Diego. Don Diego sent a
stern letter to Don Pedro Margarite. Don Pedro answered
that he was doing soldier's duty, as the Sovereigns would
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from 1984 by George Orwell: a little yellowed by age, was of a kind that had not been manufactured for
at least forty years past. He could guess, however, that the book was much
older than that. He had seen it lying in the window of a frowsy little
junk-shop in a slummy quarter of the town (just what quarter he did not
now remember) and had been stricken immediately by an overwhelming desire
to possess it. Party members were supposed not to go into ordinary shops
('dealing on the free market', it was called), but the rule was not
strictly kept, because there were various things, such as shoelaces and
razor blades, which it was impossible to get hold of in any other way. He
had given a quick glance up and down the street and then had slipped inside
and bought the book for two dollars fifty. At the time he was not conscious
1984 |
