| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie: replied quietly:
"Money----"
Mrs. Vandemeyer started. Clearly, the reply was unexpected.
"What do you mean?"
"I'll tell you. You said just now that you had a long memory. A
long memory isn't half as useful as a long purse! I dare say it
relieves your feelings a good deal to plan out all sorts of
dreadful things to do to me, but is that PRACTICAL? Revenge is
very unsatisfactory. Every one always says so. But
money"--Tuppence warmed to her pet creed--"well, there's nothing
unsatisfactory about money, is there?"
Secret Adversary |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: Antonia held out a photograph of Lena that had come from San
Francisco last Christmas. `Does she still look like that?
She hasn't been home for six years now.' Yes, it was exactly
like Lena, I told her; a comely woman, a trifle too plump,
in a hat a trifle too large, but with the old lazy eyes,
and the old dimpled ingenuousness still lurking at the corners
of her mouth.
There was a picture of Frances Harling in a befrogged riding costume that I
remembered well. `Isn't she fine!' the girls murmured. They all assented.
One could see that Frances had come down as a heroine in the family legend.
Only Leo was unmoved.
My Antonia |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James: "I belong to a time when that was not the custom."
I felt rather snubbed but I exclaimed good humoredly to Miss Tita,
"Oh, you will do as well!" I shook hands with her while she replied,
with a small flutter, "Yes, yes, to show it's all arranged!"
"Shall you bring the money in gold?" Miss Bordereau demanded,
as I was turning to the door.
I looked at her for a moment. "Aren't you a little afraid,
after all, of keeping such a sum as that in the house?"
It was not that I was annoyed at her avidity but I was really
struck with the disparity between such a treasure and such
scanty means of guarding it.
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