| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: music from a box concealed beneath the cushion. It was not only a
surprise, it was soothing and restful; and I was prepared to see
an electric fan pop out of somewhere and fan me to sleep. It was
really an Oriental fairy tale of an apartment.
As Kuang Hsu grew to boyhood he heard that out in this great
wonderful world, which he had never seen except with the eyes of
a child, there was a method of sending messages to distant cities
and provinces with the rapidity of a flash of lightning. For
centuries he and his ancestors had been sending their edicts, and
their Peking Gazette or court newspaper--the oldest journal in
the world--by runner, or relays of post horses, and the
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Professor by Charlotte Bronte: spirits, and then, destined as she was for the cloister, her
whole soul was warped to a conventual bias, and in the tame,
trained subjection of her manner, one read that she had already
prepared herself for her future course of life, by giving up her
independence of thought and action into the hands of some
despotic confessor. She permitted herself no original opinion,
no preference of companion or employment; in everything she was
guided by another. With a pale, passive, automaton air, she went
about all day long doing what she was bid; never what she liked,
or what, from innate conviction, she thought it right to do. The
poor little future religieuse had been early taught to make the
The Professor |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie: when I'm not here to look after things."
Poirot lifted his hand.
"Since they have been left, Dorcas, leave them a little longer, I
pray you. I should like to examine them."
"Very well, sir."
"What time did you go out last evening?"
"About six o'clock, sir."
"Thank you, Dorcas, that is all I have to ask you." He rose and
strolled to the window. "I have been admiring these flower beds.
How many gardeners are employed here, by the way?"
"Only three now, sir. Five, we had, before the war, when it was
The Mysterious Affair at Styles |
