| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Four Arthurian Romances by Chretien DeTroyes: it were vain to compare with it any mirror, emerald, or topaz.
But all this is of little worth to him who sees her flashing
eyes; to all who gaze on them they seem like twin candles
burning. And whose tongue is so expert as to describe the
fashion of her well-shaped nose and radiant face, in which the
rose suffuses the lily so as to efface it somewhat, and thus
enhance the glory of her visage? And who shall speak of her
laughing mouth, which God shaped with such great skill that none
might see it and not suppose that she was laughing? And what
about her teeth? They are so close to one another that it seems
they are all of one solid piece, and in order that the effect
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Riverman by Stewart Edward White: I pay you for doing what I haf alretty paid to haf done?"
Orde chuckled.
"Heinzman," said he, "I told you I'd make you scratch gravel. Now
it's time to talk business. You thought you were boring with a
mighty auger, but it's time to revise. We aren't forced to bother
with your logs, and you're lucky to get out so easy. If I turn your
whole drive into the river, you'll lose more than half of it
outright, and it'll cost you a heap to salvage the rest. And what's
more, I'll turn 'em in before you can get hold of a pile-driver.
I'll sort night and day," he bluffed, "and by to-morrow morning you
won't have a stick of timber above my booms." He laughed again.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: a proportion among the facts. At the same time their talk is dry;
they pursue a topic ploddingly, have not an agile fancy, do not throw
sudden lights from unexpected quarters, and when the talk is over
they often leave the matter where it was. They mark time instead of
marching. They think only to argue, not to reach new conclusions,
and use their reason rather as a weapon of offense than as a tool for
self-improvement. Hence the talk of some of the cleverest was
unprofitable in result, because there was no give and take; they
would grant you as little as possible for premise, and begin to
dispute under an oath to conquer or to die.
But the talk of a workman is apt to be more interesting than that of
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