| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: saying something--something more. Then because these people set such store
by funerals he said kindly, "I hope the funeral went off all right."
"Beg parding, sir?" said old Ma Parker huskily.
Poor old bird! She did look dashed. "I hope the funeral was a--a--
success," said he. Ma Parker gave no answer. She bent her head and
hobbled off to the kitchen, clasping the old fish bag that held her
cleaning things and an apron and a pair of felt shoes. The literary
gentleman raised his eyebrows and went back to his breakfast.
"Overcome, I suppose," he said aloud, helping himself to the marmalade.
Ma Parker drew the two jetty spears out of her toque and hung it behind the
door. She unhooked her worn jacket and hung that up too. Then she tied
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: dark-leaved brambles. When my father returned from Milan, he found
playing with me in the hall of our villa a child fairer than pictured cherub
--a creature who seemed to shed radiance from her looks and whose form and
motions were lighter than the chamois of the hills. The apparition
was soon explained. With his permission my mother prevailed on her
rustic guardians to yield their charge to her. They were fond of
the sweet orphan. Her presence had seemed a blessing to them, but
it would be unfair to her to keep her in poverty and want when Providence
afforded her such powerful protection. They consulted their village priest,
and the result was that Elizabeth Lavenza became the inmate of my parents'
house--my more than sister--the beautiful and adored companion of all
 Frankenstein |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades: of their ornamentation, and importance of their untold contents.
Two of these were at Alexandria, the larger of which was in the quarter
called Bruchium. These volumes, like all manuscripts of those early ages,
were written on sheets of parchment, having a wooden roller at each
end so that the reader needed only to unroll a portion at a time.
During Caesar's Alexandrian War, B.C. 48, the larger collection
was consumed by fire and again burnt by the Saracens in A.D. 640.
An immense loss was inflicted upon mankind thereby; but when we are
told of 700,000, or even 500,000 of such volumes being destroyed we
instinctively feel that such numbers must be a great exaggeration.
Equally incredulous must we be when we read of half a million volumes
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