| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: JOHN SMITH, right hand--
and add the day of the month and the year, then take Smith's left hand
on another glass strip, and add name and date and the words "left hand."
The strips were now returned to the grooved box, and took their place
among what Wilson called his "records."
He often studied his records, examining and poring over them with
absorbing interest until far into the night; but what he found there--
if he found anything--he revealed to no one. Sometimes he copied on
paper the involved and delicate pattern left by the ball of the finger,
and then vastly enlarged it with a pantograph so that he could examine
its web of curving lines with ease and convenience.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain: names in the lot."
"Mr. Chairman, how many of those envelopes have you got?"
The Chair counted.
"Together with those that have been already examined, there are
nineteen."
A storm of derisive applause broke out.
"Perhaps they all contain the secret. I move that you open them all
and read every signature that is attached to a note of that sort--
and read also the first eight words of the note."
"Second the motion!"
It was put and carried--uproariously. Then poor old Richards got
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: easily misspell, if I chose; but how, even then, could I, for instance,
make you hear her way of saying "about"? "Aboot" would magnify it; and
besides, I decline to make ugly to the eye her quite special English,
that was so charming to the ear.
"Kings Port just knows all about you," she repeated with a sweet and
mocking laugh.
"Do you mind telling me how?"
She explained at once. "This place is death to all incognitos."
The explanation, however, did not, on the instant, enlighten me. "This?
The Woman's Exchange, you mean?"
"Why, to be sure! Have you not heard ladies talking together here?"
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