| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Wyoming by William MacLeod Raine: tight-fitting breeches of the Northwest Mounted Police, and
perhaps eight or ten others had made some attempt at representing
some one other than they were. She now saw another, apparently a
new arrival, standing in the doorway negligently. A glance told
her that he was made up for a road agent and that his revolvers
and mask were a part of the necessary costuming.
Slowly his gaze circled the room and came round to her. His eyes
were hard as diamonds and as flashing, so that the impact of
their meeting looks seemed to shock her physically. He was a tall
man, swarthy of hue, and he carried himself with a light ease
that looked silken strong. Something in the bearing was familiar
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: there is a risk of losing them by keeping them here. Make an inventory
of their number, Sisenna."
The publican drew a writing-tablet from the folds of his robe, counted
the horses, and recorded the number carefully.
It was the habit of the agents of the fiscal companies to corrupt the
governors in order to pillage the provinces. Sisenna was among the
most flourishing of these agents, and was seen everywhere with his
claw-like fingers and his eyelids continually blinking.
After a time the party returned to the court. Heavy, round bronze
lids, sunk in the stones of the pavement, covered the cisterns of the
palace. Vitellius noticed that one of these was larger than the
Herodias |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: representatives of the Powers must not be massacred else the doom
of China was sealed. When they discovered that Yuan Shih-kai and
the other great viceroys had decided by stratagem to foil the
Boxers even though they must set all the imperial edicts at
naught, they decided, for the sake of the protection of the
legations and the preservation of the empire, that they would do
the same. They secretly sent supplies of food to the besieged,
which the latter feared to use lest they be poisoned. But more
than that they kept their own armies in Peking as a guard and as
a final resort in case there was danger of the legation being
overcome, and as a matter of fact there were regular pitched
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