| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: would not answer them, they killed him before the door of the hut. And
when the night came, the white man crept up on his hands and knees, and
came to his hut to look for food. All the other men were gone, but his
servant lay dead before the door; and the white man knew how it must have
happened. He could not creep further, and he lay down before the door, and
that night the white man and the black lay there dead together, side by
side. Both those men were of my friends."
"It was damned plucky of the nigger," said Peter; "but I've heard of their
doing that sort of thing before. Even of a girl who wouldn't tell where
her mistress was, and getting killed. But," he added doubtfully, "all your
company seem to be niggers or to get killed?"
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Heart of the West by O. Henry: whittler, cracker barrel hugger, shady corner lounger of the cotton
fields and sumac hills of the South became famed as a bad man among
men who had made a life-long study of the art of truculence.
At nine the next morning Calliope was fit. Inspired by his own
barbarous melodies and the contents of his jug, he was ready primed to
gather fresh laurels from the diffident brow of Quicksand. Encircled
and criss-crossed with cartridge belts, abundantly garnished with
revolvers, and copiously drunk, he poured forth into Quicksand's main
street. Too chivalrous to surprise and capture a town by silent
sortie, he paused at the nearest corner and emitted his slogan--that
fearful, brassy yell, so reminiscent of the steam piano, that had
Heart of the West |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: Gigonnet.
"But," said des Lupeaulx, frightened at such kindness, and also by so
apparently fantastic an arrangement. "What do you want of me?"
"La Billardiere's place for Baudoyer," said Gigonnet, quickly.
"That's a small matter, though it will be next to impossible for me to
do it," said des Lupeaulx. "I have just tied my hands."
"Bite the cords with your teeth," said Gigonnet.
"They are sharp," added Gobseck.
"Is that all?" asked des Lupeaulx.
"We keep the title-deeds of the property till the debts are paid,"
said Gigonnet, putting one of the papers before des Lupeaulx; "and if
|
