| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: public opinion would have pointed out to him other roads to honour--
on which he would doubtless have fared as well. For when the silly
dace try to be caught and hope to be caught, he is a foolish pike
who cannot gorge them. But the method most easy for a pike-nature
like Cagliostro's, was in the eighteenth century, as it may be in
the latter half of the nineteenth, to trade, in a materialist age,
on the unsatisfied spiritual cravings of mankind. For what do all
these phantasms betoken, but a generation ashamed of its own
materialism, sensuality, insincerity, ignorance, and striving to
escape therefrom by any and every mad superstition which seemed
likely to give an answer to the awful questions--What are we, and
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from When the Sleeper Wakes by H. G. Wells: "Feel queer? " he asked.
"Very."
"The world, what you see of it, seems strange to
you? "
"I suppose I have to live in it, strange as it seems."
"I suppose so, now."
"In the first place, hadn't I better have some
clothes? "
"They--" said the thickset man and stopped, and
the flaxen-bearded man met his eye and went away.
"You will very speedily have clothes," said the thickset
When the Sleeper Wakes |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie: It is partly your fault that I ever came to suspect her. It was
what you said about her evidence at the inquest that set me off."
Poirot looked puzzled.
"What did I say about her evidence at the inquest?"
"Don't you remember? When I cited her and John Cavendish as being
above suspicion?"
"Oh--ah--yes." He seemed a little confused, but recovered
himself. "By the way, Hastings, there is something I want you to
do for me."
"Certainly. What is it?"
"Next time you happen to be alone with Lawrence Cavendish, I want
The Mysterious Affair at Styles |
