| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll: "I suppose, now, that word 'item' has some deep legal meaning?"
"Undoubtedly!" replied the Chancellor, as articulately as he could with
a pen between his lips. He was nervously rolling and unrolling several
other scrolls, and making room among them for the one the Warden had
just handed to him. "These are merely the rough copies," he explained:
"and, as soon as I have put in the final corrections--" making a
great commotion among the different parchments, "--a semi-colon or
two that I have accidentally omitted--" here he darted about, pen in
hand, from one part of the scroll to another, spreading sheets of
blotting-paper over his corrections, "all will be ready for signing."
"Should it not be read out, first?" my Lady enquired.
Sylvie and Bruno |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Heart of the West by O. Henry: swiftly down a lonely street, and then followed the sandy road that
ran parallel to the narrow-gauge track until he reached the water-
tank, two miles below the town. There Tom Merwin stopped, tied a black
silk handkerchief about the lower part of his face, and pulled his hat
down low.
In ten minutes the night train for Rockdell pulled up at the tank,
having come from Chaparosa.
With a gun in each hand Merwin raised himself from behind a clump of
chaparral and started for the engine. But before he had taken three
steps, two long, strong arms clasped him from behind, and he was
lifted from his feet and thrown, face downward upon the grass. There
Heart of the West |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: asking each other if such and such a thing would have pleased her, and
what she would probably have said on this or that occasion.
All her little belongings were put away in a closet of the room which
held the two little beds. But Madame Aubain looked them over as little
as possible. One summer day, however, she resigned herself to the task
and when she opened the closet the moths flew out.
Virginia's frocks were hung under a shelf where there were three
dolls, some hoops, a doll-house, and a basic which she had used.
Felicite and Madame Aubain also took out the skirts, the
handkerchiefs, and the stockings and spread them on the beds, before
putting them away again. The sun fell on the piteous things,
A Simple Soul |
