| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lin McLean by Owen Wister: threatening, and he fetched one corroborator after another. I looked
passively at wet and dry bulbs, at self-recording, dotted registers; I
caught the fleeting sound of words like "meniscus "and "terrestrial
minimum thermometer," and I nodded punctually when Jode went through some
calculation. At last I heard something that I could understand--a series
of telegraphic replies to Jode from brother signal-service officers all
over the United States. He read each one through from date of signature,
and they all made any rain to-morrow entirely impossible. "And I tell
you," Jode concluded, in his high, egg-shell voice, "there's no chance of
precipitation now, sir. I tell you, sir,"--he was shrieking jubilantly--
"there's not a damn' thing to precipitate!"
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: was saying--or rather shouting--when the Time Traveller came
back. He was dressed in ordinary evening clothes, and nothing
save his haggard look remained of the change that had startled
me.
`I say,' said the Editor hilariously, `these chaps here say
you have been travelling into the middle of next week! Tell us
all about little Rosebery, will you? What will you take for the
lot?'
The Time Traveller came to the place reserved for him without
a word. He smiled quietly, in his old way. `Where's my mutton?'
he said. `What a treat it is to stick a fork into meat again!'
The Time Machine |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: river with an illumination unlike that of their fire on the
trunks and black boughs of the forest trees. They listened for
the roll of thunder, but heard nothing, and were glad that the
tempest came not near them. The stars, those dial points of
heaven, now warned the adventurers to close their eyes on the
blazing logs, and open them, in dreams, to the glow of the Great
Carbuncle.
The young married couple had taken their lodgings in the farthest
corner of the wigwam, and were separated from the rest of the
party by a curtain of curiously-woven twigs, such as might have
hung, in deep festoons, around the bridal-bower of Eve. The
Twice Told Tales |
