| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: since, by the celebrated Miss Seward of Litchfield, who, to her
numerous accomplishments, added, in a remarkable degree, the
power of narrative in private conversation. In its present form
the tale must necessarily lose all the interest which was
attached to it by the flexible voice and intelligent features of
the gifted narrator. Yet still, read aloud to an undoubting
audience by the doubtful light of the closing evening, or in
silence by a decaying taper, and amidst the solitude of a half-
lighted apartment, it may redeem its character as a good ghost
story. Miss Seward always affirmed that she had derived her
information from an authentic source, although she suppressed the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: "That's careless enough," he said. "Some of the servants have
been amusing themselves."
I was far from convinced. Not one of the servants would go into
that wing at night unless driven by dire necessity. And a
billiard cue! As a weapon of either offense or defense it was an
absurdity, unless one accepted Liddy's hypothesis of a ghost, and
even then, as Halsey pointed out, a billiard-playing ghost would
be a very modern evolution of an ancient institution.
That afternoon we, Gertrude, Halsey and I, attended the coroner's
inquest in town. Doctor Stewart had been summoned also, it
transpiring that in that early Sunday morning, when Gertrude and
The Circular Staircase |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Blix by Frank Norris:
They drew up to the dining-room table with its cover of blue denim
edged with white cord, and Condy unrolled his manuscript and read
through what he had written. She approved, and, as he had
foreseen, "caught on" to every one of his points. He was almost
ready to burst into cheers when she said:
"Any one reading that would almost believe you had been a diver
yourself, or at least had lived with divers. Those little details
count, don't they? Condy, I've an idea. See what you think of it.
Instead of having the story end with his leaving her down there
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