| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: "Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Don't fly out like this.
I am asking everybody."
"I don't believe it," I said bluntly.
"Well, I am going to. And if you gentlemen
all agreed to pay in advance I could make Hamil-
ton pay up, too. He's always turning up ashore
dead broke, and even when he has some money
he won't settle his bills. I don't know what to do
with him. He swears at me and tells me I can't
chuck a white man out into the street here. So if
you only would. . . ."
The Shadow Line |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: Babbitt said, "Why, you got a scar on your cheek."
"Yes. That's where the cop hit me. I suppose cops get a lot of fun out of
lecturing murderers, too. He was a big fellow. And they wouldn't let me help
carry Zilla down to the ambulance."
"Paul! Quit it! Listen: she won't die, and when it's all over you and I'll
go off to Maine again. And maybe we can get that May Arnold to go along. I'll
go up to Chicago and ask her. Good woman, by golly. And afterwards I'll see
that you get started in business out West somewhere, maybe Seattle--they say
that's a lovely city."
Paul was half smiling. It was Babbitt who rambled now. He could not tell
whether Paul was heeding, but he droned on till the coming of Paul's lawyer,
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Droll Stories, V. 1 by Honore de Balzac: was a terrible antagonist. On the other hand, the Sieur de Lavalliere
was a dainty fellow, for whom seemed to have been invented rich laces,
silken hose, and cancellated shoes. His long dark locks were pretty as
a lady's ringlets, and he was, to be brief, a child with whom all the
women would be glad to play. One day the Dauphine, niece of the Pope,
said laughingly to the Queen of Navarre, who did not dislike these
little jokes, "that this page was a plaster to cure every ache," which
caused the pretty little Tourainian to blush, because, being only
sixteen, he took this gallantry as a reproach.
Now on his return from Italy the Cadet of Maille found the slipper of
marriage ready for his foot, which his mother had obtained for him in
Droll Stories, V. 1 |
