| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Book of Remarkable Criminals by H. B. Irving: by the number of violins, banjoes, guitars, and other musical
instruments that adorned his drawing-room. Tea and music formed
the staple of the evening entertainments which Mr. and Mrs.
Thompson would give occasionally to friendly neighbours. Not
that the pleasures of conversation were neglected wholly in
favour of art. The host was a voluble and animated talker, his
face and body illustrating by appropriate twists and turns the
force of his comments. The Russo-Turkish war, then raging, was a
favourite theme of Mr. Thompson's. He asked, as we are still
asking, what Christianity and civilisation mean by countenancing
the horrors of war. He considered the British Government in the
A Book of Remarkable Criminals |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: danger. After this, they had no news whatever, neither from Sir
Philip, nor even from their brother Falconer. The case of Lady
Forester was not indeed different from that of hundreds in the
same situation; but a feeble mind is necessarily an irritable
one, and the suspense which some bear with constitutional
indifference or philosophical resignation, and some with a
disposition to believe and hope the best, was intolerable to Lady
Forester, at once solitary and sensitive, low-spirited, and
devoid of strength of mind, whether natural or acquired.
CHAPTER II.
As she received no further news of Sir Philip, whether directly
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Foolish Virgin by Thomas Dixon: somewhere in the darkness beyond.
The walls were decorated at intervals. A huge
bunch of onions hung on a wooden peg beside the wild-
cat skin. Over the window was slung an old-fashioned
muzzle-loading musket. The sling which held it was
made of a pair of ancient home-made suspenders fastened
to the logs with nails. Beneath the gun hung a cow's
horn, cut and finished for powder, and with it a dirty
game-bag. Strings of red peppers were strung along
each of the walls, with here and there bunches of
popcorn in the ears. A pile of black walnuts lay in
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