| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain: great Sachem, no! [Profound distress overhead.] I'd
nearly forgot. That pick had fresh earth on it! [The
boys were sick with terror in a moment.] What busi-
ness has a pick and a shovel here? What business with
fresh earth on them? Who brought them here -- and
where are they gone? Have you heard anybody? --
seen anybody? What! bury it again and leave them to
come and see the ground disturbed? Not exactly -- not
exactly. We'll take it to my den."
"Why, of course! Might have thought of that be-
fore. You mean Number One?"
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: uncertain, but who was held to hail from some part of the British Isles,
and who had travelled round the world. He was currently reported to have
done three years' labour for attempted rape in Australia, but nothing
certain was known regarding his antecedents. He had been up on guard half
the night, and was now taking his rest lying on his back with his arm
thrown over his face; but a slight movement could be noted in his jaw as he
slowly chewed a piece of tobacco; and occasionally when he turned it round
the mouth opened, and disclosed two rows of broken yellow stumps set in
very red gums.
The three Colonial Englishmen took no notice of him. Two, who were slowly
smoking, were of the large and powerful build, and somewhat loose set about
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson: creature; and now he would have given forty minutes of his last
hour to have unsaid his cruel speech.
Suddenly a hoarse and ragged peal of cockcrow rose to their ears
from the dark valley below the windows. And this shattering noise
in the silence of all around was like a light in a dark place, and
shook them both out of their reflections.
"Alas, can I do nothing to help you?" she said, looking up.
"Madam," replied Denis, with a fine irrelevancy, "if I have said
anything to wound you, believe me, it was for your own sake and not
for mine."
She thanked him with a tearful look.
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