| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: "I would have thought," said I, "that occasionally, anyhow, you would
have found the wit and intuition of woman valuable to you in your
lines of--er--business."
"Now, wouldn't you," said Jeff, with an emphatic nod--"wouldn't you
have imagined that? But a woman is an absolutely unreliable partner in
any straight swindle. She's liable to turn honest on you when you are
depending upon her the most. I tried 'em once.
"Bill Humble, an old friend of mine in the Territories, conceived the
illusion that he wanted to be appointed United States Marshall. At
that time me and Andy was doing a square, legitimate business of
selling walking canes. If you unscrewed the head of one and turned it
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov: by order of General Ermolov, and that too in the
year 1824. Nevertheless, the tradition has taken
such firm root, in spite of the inscription, that
really you do not know what to believe; the more
so, as it is not the custom to believe inscriptions.
To reach the station Kobi, we still had to
descend about five versts, across ice-covered rocks
and plashy snow. The horses were exhausted; we
were freezing; the snowstorm droned with ever-
increasing violence, exactly like the storms of
our own northern land, only its wild melodies
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White: hottest noons. But when he relaxes in camp, he puts away all
these prideful possessions and turns out in the savage simplicity
of his red blanket. Draped negligently, sometimes very
negligently, in what may be termed semi-toga fashion, he stalks
about or squats before his little fire in all the glory of a
regained savagery. The contrast of the red with his red bronze or
black skin, the freedom and grace of his movements, the upright
carriage of his fine figure, and the flickering savagery playing
in his eyes are very effective.
Our men occupied their leisure variously and happily. A great
deal of time they spent before their tiny fires roasting meat and
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