| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: may spell life or health to him; but among all your creditors, I
don't see that it amounts to a hill of beans--I don't believe it'll
pay their car-fares all round. And don't you think you'll ever
get thanked. You were known to pay a long price for the
chance of rummaging that wreck; you do the rummaging, you
come home, and you hand over ten thousand--or twenty, if you
like--a part of which you'll have to own up you made by
smuggling; and, mind! you'll never get Billy Fowler to stick his
name to a receipt. Now just glance at the transaction from the
outside, and see what a clear case it makes. Your ten thousand
is a sop; and people will only wonder you were so damned
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mad King by Edgar Rice Burroughs: about the prospects, and at last Barney obtained a willing
promise from him that he would consent to being placed
upon his throne and would go to Lustadt at any time that
Barney should come for him with a force from the retainers
of Prince Ludwig von der Tann.
"Let us hope," cried the king, "that the luck of the reign-
ing house of Lutha has been at last restored. Not since my
aunt, the Princess Victoria, ran away with a foreigner has
good fortune shone upon my house. It was when my father
was still a young man--before he had yet come to the
throne--and though his reign was marked with great peace
The Mad King |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: stricken as if by a thunderbolt. He stood like a statue, his eyes
fastened on the singer. His flaming glance exerted a sort of magnetic
influence on Zambinella, for he turned his eyes at last in Sarrasine's
direction, and his divine voice faltered. He trembled! An involuntary
murmur escaped the audience, which he held fast as if fastened to his
lips; and that completely disconcerted him; he stopped in the middle
of the aria he was singing and sat down. Cardinal Cicognara, who had
watched from the corner of his eye the direction of his /protege's/
glance, saw the Frenchman; he leaned toward one of his ecclesiastical
aides-de-camp, and apparently asked the sculptor's name. When he had
obtained the reply he desired he scrutinized the artist with great
|
