| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: resolution. He had gems engraved with appropriate legends,
hortatory or threatening: "DIEU LE SCET," God knows it; or
"SOUVENEZ-VOUS DE - " Remember! (1) It is only towards the
end that the two stories begin to differ; and in some points
the historical version is the more tragic. Hamlet only
stabbed a silly old councillor behind the arras; Charles of
Orleans trampled France for five years under the hoofs of his
banditti. The miscarriage of Hamlet's vengeance was
confined, at widest, to the palace; the ruin wrought by
Charles of Orleans was as broad as France.
(1) Michelet, iv. App. 179, p. 337.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Stories From the Old Attic by Robert Harris: young man lost his balance and fell over backward into a patiently
waiting mud hole.
While these events came into being to form a permanent, though
small, part of the history of the universe, the young driver of the
second car was, not many miles away, even then climbing out of his
vehicle into the rain and opening the trunk. His date, in a very
ladylike manner, and with due concern for her precious gown, stayed
in the car with her hands folded in her lap. She generously took
care to look away from the young man's labors in order not to cause
him embarrassment, and, when he slipped down and bumped his head on
the fender as he tried to loosen a particularly intransigent lug
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela: searching for a way out of the canyon.
A curse broke from Demetrio's parched lips.
"Fire at 'em. Shoot any man who runs away!"
"Storm the hill!" he thundered like a wild beast.
But the enemy, lying in ambush by the thousand,
opened up its machine-gun fire. Demetrio's men fell like
wheat under the sickle.
Tears of rage and pain rise to Demetrio's eyes as
Anastasio slowly slides from his horse without a sound,
and lies outstretched, motionless. Venancio falls close
beside him, his chest riddled with bullets. Meco hurtles
The Underdogs |
