| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Underground City by Jules Verne: Scotland until (by public subscription) it could be refilled, care being
of course taken, in the first place, to stop the rent up tight.
This catastrophe would have been the death of Sir Walter Scott,
had he still been in the world.
The accident was explicable when it was ascertained that,
between the bed of the lake and the vast cavity beneath,
the geological strata had become reduced to a thin layer,
incapable of longer sustaining the weight of water.
Now, although to most people this event seemed plainly due
to natural causes, yet to James Starr and his friends,
Simon and Harry Ford, the question constantly recurred,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: Coralie. She died--good; but he had not enough money to bury her; he
did not do as you did just now, he did not faint, though he is a poet;
he wrote six rollicking songs, and earned three hundred francs, with
which he paid for Coralie's funeral. I have those songs; I know them
by heart. Well, then do you too compose your songs: be cheerful, be
wild, be irresistible and--insatiable! You hear me?--Do not let me
have to speak again.
"Kiss papa. Good-bye."
When, half an hour after, Europe went into her mistress' room, she
found her kneeling in front of a crucifix, in the attitude which the
most religious of painters has given to Moses before the burning bush
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Research Magnificent by H. G. Wells: "I CAN'T marry," he said. "The trouble has gone too far. I've lost
my nerve in the presence of women. I don't like them any more.
They come at one--done up in a lot of ridiculous clothes, and
chattering about all sorts of things that don't matter. . . . He
surveyed his friend's thoughtful attitude. "I'm getting to hate
women, Benham. I'm beginning now to understand the bitterness of
spinsters against men. I'm beginning to grasp the unkindliness of
priests. The perpetual denial. To you, happily married, a woman is
just a human being. You can talk to her, like her, you can even
admire her calmly; you've got, you see, no grudge against her. . . ."
He sat down abruptly.
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