| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: resign from the Athletic and are thereafter heard to say, in the drowsy
sanctity of the Union lounge, "The Athletic would be a pretty good hotel, if
it were more exclusive."
The Athletic Club building is nine stories high, yellow brick with glassy
roof-garden above and portico of huge limestone columns below. The lobby, with
its thick pillars of porous Caen stone, its pointed vaulting, and a brown
glazed-tile floor like well-baked bread-crust, is a combination of
cathedral-crypt and rathskellar. The members rush into the lobby as though
they were shopping and hadn't much time for it. Thus did Babbitt enter, and
to the group standing by the cigar-counter he whooped, "How's the boys? How's
the boys? Well, well, fine day!"
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling: Blood is meat an' drink to 'em, an' ill-will is poison.'
'Same as bees,' said the Bee Boy. 'Bees won't stay by a
house where there's hating.'
'True,' said Tom. 'This Reformatories tarrified the
Pharisees same as the reaper goin' round a last stand o'
wheat tarrifies rabbits. They packed into the Marsh from
all parts, and they says, "Fair or foul, we must flit out o'
this, for Merry England's done with, an' we're reckoned
among the Images."'
'Did they all see it that way?' said Hobden.
'All but one that was called Robin - if you've heard of
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: her back, spoke to me in a stage whisper.
"Is she talking still? or again?" he asked, just before the door
closed. There was a second's indecision with the knob, then,
judging discretion the better part, Mrs. Klopton went away.
"Now, then," McKnight said, settling himself in a chair beside the
bed, "spit it out. Not the wreck - I know all I want about that.
But the theft. I can tell you beforehand that it was a woman."
I had crawled painfully out of bed, and was in the act of pouring
the egg-nog down the pipe of the washstand. I paused, with the
glass in the air.
"A woman!" I repeated, startled. "What makes you think that?"
The Man in Lower Ten |
