| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor: plain enough; but that something more terrible than insult was yet
held in reserve they did not doubt. It was safe, therefore, not
only to fulfil, but to exceed, the letter of their instructions.
Before night the whole population were acquainted with their
duties; and an unusual mood of expectancy, not unmixed with brutish
glee, fell upon Kinesma.
By the middle of the next forenoon, Boris and his wife, seated in
the open kibitka, drawn by post-horses, reached the boundaries of
the estate, a few versts from the village. They were both silent
and slightly pale at first, but now began to exchange mechanical
remarks, to divert each other's thoughts from the coming reception.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: the deed of gift," -- and he left the room.
D'Artagnan looked at him as he went out with something of a
pensive and even an agitated air.
"After all," said he, "he is a brave man. It is only a sad
reflection that it is from fear of me, and not affection
that he acts thus. Well, I shall endeavor that affection may
follow." Then, after an instant's deeper reflection, --
"Bah!" said he, "to what purpose? He is an Englishman." And
he in his turn went out, a little confused after the combat.
"So," said he, "I am a land-owner! But how the devil am I to
share the cottage with Planchet? Unless I give him the land,
 Ten Years Later |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Rewards and Fairies by Rudyard Kipling: squalls, and the dirty little English ten-gun brig which made him
sheer off had the impudence to press another five of our men.
That's how we reached to the chops of the Channel. Twelve good
men pressed out of thirty-five; an eighteen-pound shot-hole close
beside our rudder; our mainsail looking like spectacles where the
Frenchman had hit us - and the Channel crawling with short-
handed British cruisers. Put that in your pipe and smoke it next
time you grumble at the price of tobacco!
'Well, then, to top it off, while we was trying to get at our
leaks, a French lugger come swooping at us out o' the dusk. We
warned him to keep away, but he fell aboard us, and up climbed
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