| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: famous train-gambler between Omaha and 'Frisco, a gentleman
who died in his boots and took three sheriff's deputies
along with him to Kingdom-Come. Now, that's MY record."
Theron looked earnestly at her, and said nothing.
"And now take Soulsby," she went on. "Of course I take
it for granted there's a good deal that he has never felt
called upon to mention. He hasn't what you may call
a talkative temperament. But there is also a good deal
that I do know. He's been an actor, too, and to this
day I'd back him against Edwin Booth himself to recite
'Clarence's Dream.' And he's been a medium, and then he
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: the locking-up and got upstairs as quickly as we could. I left
the lights all on, and our footsteps echoed cavernously. Liddy
had a stiff neck the next morning, from looking back over her
shoulder, and she refused to go to bed.
"Let me stay in your dressing-room, Miss Rachel," she begged.
"If you don't, I'll sit in the hall outside the door. I'm not
going to be murdered with my eyes shut."
"If you're going to be murdered," I retorted, "it won't make any
difference whether they are shut or open. But you may stay in
the dressing-room, if you will lie on the couch: when you sleep
in a chair you snore."
The Circular Staircase |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: ribs. Then he knocked again. Then he tried the door, and as it was
open, he walked deferentially into the sitting room. Sonorous snores
came from one of the bedrooms. Oscar peered in and saw John; but he saw
no Billy in the other bed. Then, always deferential, he sat down in the
sitting room and watched a couple of prettily striped coats hanging in a
half-open closet.
At that moment the black gelding was flirtatiously crossing the
drawbridge over the Charles on the Allston Road. The gelding knew the
clank of those suspending chains and the slight unsteadiness of the
meeting halves of the bridge as well as it knew oats. But it could not
enjoy its own entirely premeditated surprise quite so much as Bertie and
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