| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy: about the town, selling each of these at the price
the stores charged for a quarter of a cord. That
unfortunate day Ivan Mironov drove out very
early with half a cartload, which he soon sold.
He loaded up again with another cartload which
he hoped to sell, but he looked in vain for a cus-
tomer; no one would buy it. It was his bad luck
all that day to come across experienced towns-
people, who knew all the tricks of the peasants in
selling firewood, and would not believe that he
had actually brought the wood from the country
The Forged Coupon |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft: I made it last night in a dream of strange cities; and dreams
are older than brooding Tyre, or the contemplative Sphinx, or
garden-girdled Babylon."
It was then that he began that rambling
tale which suddenly played upon a sleeping memory and won the
fevered interest of my uncle. There had been a slight earthquake
tremor the night before, the most considerable felt in New England
for some years; and Wilcox's imagination had been keenly affected.
Upon retiring, he had had an unprecedented dream of great Cyclopean
cities of Titan blocks and sky-flung monoliths, all dripping with
green ooze and sinister with latent horror. Hieroglyphics had
Call of Cthulhu |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lady Susan by Jane Austen: though my impertinent sister, I believe, wanted only opportunity for doing
so. Everything, however, was going on calmly and quietly; and, though I
counted the hours of Sir James's stay, my mind was entirely satisfied with
the posture of affairs. Guess, then, what I must feel at the sudden
disturbance of all my schemes; and that, too, from a quarter where I had
least reason to expect it. Reginald came this morning into my dressing-room
with a very unusual solemnity of countenance, and after some preface
informed me in so many words that he wished to reason with me on the
impropriety and unkindness of allowing Sir James Martin to address my
daughter contrary to her inclinations. I was all amazement. When I found
that he was not to be laughed out of his design, I calmly begged an
Lady Susan |
