| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Underground City by Jules Verne: my father, Mr. Starr, and who finally threw that stone at us
in the gallery of the Yarrow shaft! Ah! there's no doubt about it;
there is a man's hand in all that!"
Harry spoke with such energy that conviction came instantly and fully
to the engineer's mind. As to the old overman, he was already convinced.
Besides, there they were in the presence of an undeniable fact--
the stopping-up of cracks through which gas had escaped freely
the night before.
"Take your pick, Harry," cried Ford; "mount on my shoulders, my lad!
I am still strong enough to bear you!" The young man understood
in an instant. His father propped himself up against the rock.
|
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: yours!--did some one say eleven?--a sack which is going to be the
most celebrated in the whole Uni--"] "Oh, Edward" (beginning to
sob), "we are so poor!--but--but--do as you think best--do as you
think best."
Edward fell--that is, he sat still; sat with a conscience which was
not satisfied, but which was overpowered by circumstances.
Meantime a stranger, who looked like an amateur detective gotten up
as an impossible English earl, had been watching the evening's
proceedings with manifest interest, and with a contented expression
in his face; and he had been privately commenting to himself. He
was now soliloquising somewhat like this: 'None of the Eighteen are
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: wily notary, had pledged his word that he had no natural children, no
tie that could endanger the happiness of her dear Felicie.
"You may perhaps think I go rather too far," said the bigot to the
journalist; "but in giving such a jewel as my Felicie to any man, one
must think of the future. I am not one of those mothers who want to be
rid of their daughters. Monsieur Cardot hurries matters on, urges
forward his daughter's marriage; he wishes it over. This is the only
point on which we differ.--Though with a man like you, monsieur, a
literary man whose youth has been preserved by hard work from the
moral shipwreck now so prevalent, we may feel quite safe; still, you
would be the first to laugh at me if I looked for a husband for my
The Muse of the Department |
