| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: of action upon the police here."
"What is desired," said the man of papers, "is the occurrence of
something definite which should stimulate their vigilance. That is
within your province - is it not so?"
Mr Verloc made no answer except by a sigh, which escaped him
involuntarily, for instantly he tried to give his face a cheerful
expression. The official blinked doubtfully, as if affected by the
dim light of the room. He repeated vaguely.
"The vigilance of the police - and the severity of the magistrates.
The general leniency of the judicial procedure here, and the utter
absence of all repressive measures, are a scandal to Europe. What
The Secret Agent |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: All right, I might be worse than that;
And you might now be lying flat;
I might have done it from behind,
And taken what there was to find.
Don't worry, for I'm not that kind.
`Do I believe in God?' Is that
The price tonight of a new hat?
Has He commanded that His name
Be written everywhere the same?
Have all who live in every place
Identified His hidden face?
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: replaced the large dullness of the old gentry, and that was all.
Bladesover, I thought, had undergone just the same change between
the seventies and the new century that had overtaken the dear old
Times, and heaven knows how much more of the decorous British
fabric. These Lichtensteins and their like seem to have no
promise in them at all of any fresh vitality for the kingdom. I
do not believe in their intelligence or their power--they have
nothing new about them at all, nothing creative nor
rejuvenescent, no more than a disorderly instinct of acquisition;
and the prevalence of them and their kind is but a phase in the
broad slow decay of the great social organism of England. They
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