| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: of writing to the Pullman Company and asking them if they ever
traveled in their own cars. I even formulated some of the letter.
"If they are built to scale, why not take a man of ordinary stature
as your unit?" I 'wrote mentally. "I can not fold together like
the traveling cup with which I drink your abominable water."
I was more cheerful after I had had a cup of coffee in the Union
Station. It was too early to attend to business, and I lounged in
the restaurant and hid behind the morning papers. As I had expected,
they had got hold of my visit and its object. On the first page was
a staring announcement that the forged papers in the Bronson case
had been brought to Pittsburg. Underneath, a telegram from
The Man in Lower Ten |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Aeneid by Virgil: But, sav'd from danger, with a grateful sense,
The labors of a god we recompense.
See, from afar, yon rock that mates the sky,
About whose feet such heaps of rubbish lie;
Such indigested ruin; bleak and bare,
How desart now it stands, expos'd in air!
'T was once a robber's den, inclos'd around
With living stone, and deep beneath the ground.
The monster Cacus, more than half a beast,
This hold, impervious to the sun, possess'd.
The pavement ever foul with human gore;
Aeneid |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: these circumstances, and rising as he spoke to take off his damp
clothes, get into his dressing-gown, and do up his head for the night.
Then he returned from the bed to the fireplace, gesticulating, and
launching forth in various tones the following sentences, all of which
ended in a high falsetto key, like notes of interjection:
"What the deuce have I done to her? Why is she angry with me? Marianne
did NOT forget my fire! Mademoiselle told her not to light it! I must
be a child if I can't see, from the tone and manner she has been
taking to me, that I've done something to displease her. Nothing like
it ever happened to Chapeloud! I can't live in the midst of such
torments as--At my age--"
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