| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: "Beg leave to congratulate you on your arrival, and trust you
intend a long stay with us. Fine town here, sir, beautiful
buildings, and much that may interest a stranger. May I hope for
the honor of your commands in respect to supper?"
"The man sees a family likeness! the rogue has guessed that I am
related to the Major!" thought Robin, who had hitherto
experienced little superfluous civility.
All eyes were now turned on the country lad, standing at the
door, in his worn three-cornered hat, gray coat, leather
breeches, and blue yarn stockings, leaning on an oaken cudgel,
and bearing a wallet on his back.
The Snow Image |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lucile by Owen Meredith: My friend, hear a parable: ponder it well:
For a moral there is in the tale that I tell.
One evening I sat in the Palais Royal,
And there, while I laugh'd at Grassot and Arnal,
My eye fell on the face of a man at my side;
Every time that he laugh'd I observed that he sigh'd,
As though vex'd to be pleased. I remark'd that he sat
Ill at ease on his seat, and kept twirling his hat
In his hand, with a look of unquiet abstraction.
I inquired the cause of his dissatisfaction.
"Sir," he said, "if what vexes me here you would know,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Wife, et al by Anton Chekhov: Then it seemed to her that God would strike her dead that minute
for not having once been in her husband's study, for fear of
infection. And altogether she had a dull, despondent feeling and
a conviction that her life was spoilt, and that there was no
setting it right anyhow. . . .
After dinner darkness came on. When Olga Ivanovna went into the
drawing-room Korostelev was asleep on the sofa, with a
gold-embroidered silk cushion under his head.
"Khee-poo-ah," he snored -- "khee-poo-ah."
And the doctors as they came to sit up and went away again did
not notice this disorder. The fact that a strange man was asleep
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