The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie: existence. What fun they had had together, he and Tuppence! And
now--oh, he couldn't believe it--it couldn't be true!
TUPPENCE--DEAD! Little Tuppence, brimming over with life! It was
a dream, a horrible dream. Nothing more.
They brought him a note, a few kind words of sympathy from Peel
Edgerton, who had read the news in the paper. (There had been a
large headline: EX-V.A.D. FEARED DROWNED.) The letter ended with
the offer of a post on a ranch in the Argentine, where Sir James
had considerable interests.
"Kind old beggar," muttered Tommy, as he flung it aside.
The door opened, and Julius burst in with his usual violence. He
Secret Adversary |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lady Susan by Jane Austen: daughter contrary to her inclinations. I was all amazement. When I found
that he was not to be laughed out of his design, I calmly begged an
explanation, and desired to know by what he was impelled, and by whom
commissioned, to reprimand me. He then told me, mixing in his speech a few
insolent compliments and ill-timed expressions of tenderness, to which I
listened with perfect indifference, that my daughter had acquainted him
with some circumstances concerning herself, Sir James, and me which had
given him great uneasiness. In short, I found that she had in the first
place actually written to him to request his interference, and that, on
receiving her letter, he had conversed with her on the subject of it, in
order to understand the particulars, and to assure himself of her real
Lady Susan |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Myths and Myth-Makers by John Fiske: according to the plan marked out in the opening lines. The
supposed additions, therefore, though they may have given to
the poem a somewhat wider scope, have not at any rate changed
its primitive character of an Achilleis. To my mind they seem
even called for by the original conception of the consequences
of the wrath. To have inserted the battle at the ships, in
which Sarpedon breaks down the wall of the Greeks, immediately
after the occurrences of the first book, would have been too
abrupt altogether. Zeus, after his reluctant promise to
Thetis, must not be expected so suddenly to exhibit such fell
determination. And after the long series of books describing
Myths and Myth-Makers |