| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: argument. He dares not assert, he was alive ever since that 29th
of March, but that he is now alive, and was so on that day: I
grant the latter; for he did not die till night, as appears by
the printed account of his death, in a letter to a lord; and
whether he is since revived I leave the world to judge. This
indeed is perfect cavilling, and I am ashamed to dwell any longer
upon it.
Fourthly, I will appeal to Mr. Partridge himself, whether it be
probable I could have been so indiscreet, to begin my predictions
with the only falsehood that ever was pretended to be in them;
and this in an affair at home, where I had so many opportunities
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: intervals of several years.
The next day--that is to say, on the fourth of September--something
occurred which profoundly impressed Roxana. Mr. Driscoll missed another
small sum of money--which is a way of saying that this was not a new thing,
but had happened before. In truth, it had happened three times before.
Driscoll's patience was exhausted. He was a fairly humane man toward
slaves and other animals; he was an exceedingly humane man toward the
erring of his own race. Theft he could not abide, and plainly there was
a thief in his house. Necessarily the thief must be one of his Negros.
Sharp measures must be taken. He called his servants before him.
There were three of these, besides Roxy: a man, a woman, and a boy
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: flash she remembered childish parties when they had played charades, and
one side had left the room and come in again to act a word--just what she
was doing now. The strange man went over to the stove and sat down in her
arm-chair. She did not want him to talk or come near her--it was enough to
see him in the room, so secure and happy. How hungry she had been for the
nearness of someone like that--who knew nothing at all about her--and made
no demands--but just lived. Viola ran over to the table and put her arms
round the jar of hyacinths.
"Beautiful! Beautiful!" she cried--burying her head in the flowers--and
sniffing greedily at the scent. Over the leaves she looked at the man and
laughed.
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