| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Mother by Owen Wister: Egg alone. It takes a good deal of surplus to stand that.'"
"'Serve her right,' said Ethel 'And I would say so to her face.'"
"September brought freshness to the stock market but not to me. Mr.
Beverly, like the well-to-do man that he was, remained away in Europe
until October should require his presence as a guiding hand in the
office. Thus was I left without his buoyant consolation in the face of my
investments."
"Petunias were being adjusted on a four per cent basis; Dutchess and
Columbia Traction was holding its own; I could not complain of
Amalgamated Electric, though it was now lower than when I had bought it,
while had I sold it on that Wednesday in May when Ethel begged me, before
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: to his head, he was conscious of nothing but a feeling of
fullness -- of congestion. These sensations were
unaccompanied by thought. The intellectual part of his
nature was already effaced; he had power only to feel, and
feeling was torment. He was conscious of motion.
Encompassed in a luminous cloud, of which he was now merely
the fiery heart, without material substance, he swung
through unthinkable arcs of oscillation, like a vast
pendulum. Then all at once, with terrible suddenness, the
light about him shot upward with the noise of a loud splash;
a frightful roaring was in his ears, and all was cold and
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: neat blue suit and gold-banded cigar, on the lookout for emergencies.
The town marshal is there with two deputies to keep order, having been
promised free drinks by the trust.
"Well, sir, it took Bird City just ten minutes to realize that it was
in a cage. We expected trouble; but there wasn't any. The citizens saw
that we had 'em. The nearest railroad was thirty miles away; and it
would be two weeks at least before the river would be fordable. So
they began to cuss, amiable, and throw down dollars on the bar till it
sounded like a selection on the xylophone.
"There was about 1,500 grown-up adults in Bird City that had arrived
at years of indiscretion; and the majority of 'em required from three
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