| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy: laws whatever exist, and that the only thing to do
is to pursue one's own interests and pleasures.
This he now made his rule in life. He accord-
ingly got as much profit as he could out of pur-
chasing goods for lodgers. But this did not pay
all his expenses. Then he took to stealing, when-
ever chance offered--money and all sorts of val-
uables. One day he stole a purse full of money
from Eugene Mihailovich, but was found out.
Eugene Mihailovich did not hand him over to the
police, but dismissed him on the spot.
The Forged Coupon |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: immediately, the telephone rang inside and the butler left the porch Daisy
seized upon the momentary interruption and leaned toward me.
"I'll tell you a family secret," she whispered enthusiastically. "It's
about the butler's nose. Do you want to hear about the butler's nose?"
"That's why I came over to-night."
"Well, he wasn't always a butler; he used to be the silver polisher for
some people in New York that had a silver service for two hundred people.
He had to polish it from morning till night, until finally it began to
affect his nose----"
"Things went from bad to worse," suggested Miss Baker.
"Yes. Things went from bad to worse, until finally he had to give up
The Great Gatsby |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: The whole thing was a fiasco. The last act was played to almost
empty benches. The curtain went down on a titter and some groans.
As soon as it was over, Dorian Gray rushed behind the scenes into
the greenroom. The girl was standing there alone, with a look
of triumph on her face. Her eyes were lit with an exquisite fire.
There was a radiance about her. Her parted lips were smiling over
some secret of their own.
When he entered, she looked at him, and an expression of infinite joy
came over her. "How badly I acted to-night, Dorian!" she cried.
"Horribly!" he answered, gazing at her in amazement. "Horribly!
It was dreadful. Are you ill? You have no idea what it was.
The Picture of Dorian Gray |
