| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: about your world at once and there would have been no delay. But
we will try to accommodate you." He turned to an under clerk and
says -
"What system is Jupiter in?"
"I don't remember, sir, but I think there is such a planet in one
of the little new systems away out in one of the thinly worlded
corners of the universe. I will see."
He got a balloon and sailed up and up and up, in front of a map
that was as big as Rhode Island. He went on up till he was out of
sight, and by and by he came down and got something to eat and went
up again. To cut a long story short, he kept on doing this for a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Market-Place by Harold Frederic: wholly altered since my youth--and it was best, I thought,
to make Robert free to act under these conditions,
which he understood much better than I could pretend
to do. Thus it was that when he said it was necessary
for Fromentin Brothers to belong to the Stock Exchange,
I did not object. He was active and bold and clever,
and he was in the thick of the fight. Therefore he
should be the judge in all things. And that is our ruin.
In the time of the South African excitement, he won
a great deal of money. Then he lost it all and more.
Then gambling began, and his fortunes went now up, now down,
The Market-Place |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: panegyric upon the Battering-Rams of the ancients--the Vinea which
Alexander made use of at the siege of Troy.--He would tell my uncle Toby of
the Catapultae of the Syrians, which threw such monstrous stones so many
hundred feet, and shook the strongest bulwarks from their very foundation:-
-he would go on and describe the wonderful mechanism of the Ballista which
Marcellinus makes so much rout about!--the terrible effects of the
Pyraboli, which cast fire;--the danger of the Terebra and Scorpio, which
cast javelins.--But what are these, would he say, to the destructive
machinery of corporal Trim?--Believe me, brother Toby, no bridge, or
bastion, or sally-port, that ever was constructed in this world, can hold
out against such artillery.
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