| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: pleased, and be happy."
"Why not?" said a quiet voice at his back.
He turned, and saw an old man with a long beard and a
threadbare cloak (the garb affected by the pagan philosophers)
standing behind him and smiling curiously.
"How is it that you answer that which has not been
spoken?" said Hermas; "and who are you that honour me with
your company?"
"Forgive the intrusion," answered the stranger; "it is not
ill meant. A friendly interest is as good as an introduction."
"But to what singular circumstance do I owe this interest?"
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: blisters, as imagining that half a dozen of 'em at once, would draw a man
as surely to his grave, as a herse and six--rashly concluded, that the
Devil himself was nothing in the world, but one great bouncing
Cantharidis.--
I have nothing to say to people who allow themselves this monstrous liberty
in arguing, but what Nazianzen cried out (that is, polemically) to
Philagrius--
'(Greek)!' O rare! 'tis fine reasoning, Sir indeed!--'(Greek)' and most
nobly do you aim at truth, when you philosophize about it in your moods and
passions.
Nor is it to be imagined, for the same reason, I should stop to inquire,
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: leave. Barbara Fitzhugh flounced out without waiting to speak to
me, but Mr. Harton came up, as I knew he would.
"You have decided to give up the house, I hope, Miss Innes," he
said. "Mrs. Armstrong has wired me again."
"I am not going to give it up," I maintained, "until I understand
some things that are puzzling me. The day that the murderer is
discovered, I will leave."
"Then, judging by what I have heard, you will be back in the city
very soon," he said. And I knew that he suspected the
discredited cashier of the Traders' Bank.
Mr. Jamieson came up to me as I was about to leave the coroner's
The Circular Staircase |
