| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: It came to this, that Mr. Burns mustered his
courage one day and remonstrated earnestly with
the captain. Neither he nor the second mate
could get a wink of sleep in their watches below for
the noise. . . . And how could they be ex-
pected to keep awake while on duty? He pleaded.
The answer of that stern man was that if he and the
second mate didn't like the noise, they were wel-
come to pack up their traps and walk over the side.
When this alternative was offered the ship hap-
pened to be 600 miles from the nearest land.
The Shadow Line |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Book of Remarkable Criminals by H. B. Irving: himself to pay 130,000 livres for the lordly domain of Buisson-
Souef. So great were his pride and joy on the conclusion of the
latter bargain that he amused himself by rehearsing on paper his
future style and title: "Antoine Francois de Cyrano Derues de
Bury, Seigneur de Buisson-Souef et Valle Profonde." He is worthy
of Thackeray's pen, this little grocer-snob, with his grand and
ruinous acquaintance with the noble and the great, his spurious
titles, his unwearied climbing of the social ladder.
The confiding, if willing, dupe of aristocratic impecuniosity,
Derues was a past master of the art of duping others. From the
moment of the purchase of Buisson-Souef all his art was employed
A Book of Remarkable Criminals |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from House of Mirth by Edith Wharton: very good fun. The fact is, the Gormers have struck out on a line
of their own: what they want is to have a good time, and to have
it in their own way. They gave the other thing a few months'
trial, under my distinguished auspices, and they were really
doing extremely well--getting on a good deal faster than the
Brys, just because they didn't care as much--but suddenly they
decided that the whole business bored them, and that what they
wanted was a crowd they could really feel at home with. Rather
original of them, don't you think so? Mattie Gormer HAS got
aspirations still; women always have; but she's awfully
easy-going, and Sam won't be bothered, and they both like to be
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