| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry: and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they
are wisest. They are the magi.
End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of THE GIFT OF THE MAGI.
The Gift of the Magi |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Marie by H. Rider Haggard: we must answer for all things at the last day, and not for me. I only
know that were I your age and not burdened with a daughter to watch
over, _I_ should go."
"Why should you talk to me thus?" I asked with indignation. "Why do you
not go yourself, seeing that I am quite ready to look after Marie?"
(Here the Vrouw Prinsloo and the other Boers tittered.) "And why do you
not address your remarks to these other heeren instead of to me, seeing
that they are the friends and trek-companions of your nephew?"
At this point the male Prinsloos and Meyer found that they had business
elsewhere.
"It is for you to judge, yet remember, Allan, that it is an awful thing
Marie |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: reflect on his course, he heard a slight movement which echoed faintly
from the spiral staircase. He listened attentively, and the whispered
words, "He has gone to bed," said by the old woman, reached his ear.
By an accident unknown probably to the architect, the slightest noise
on the staircase sounded in the room of the apprentices, so that
Philippe did not lose a single movement of the miser and his sister
who were watching him. He undressed, lay down, pretended to sleep, and
employed the time during which the pair remained on the staircase, in
seeking means to get from his prison to the hotel de Poitiers.
About ten o'clock Cornelius and his sister, convinced that their new
inmate was sleeping, retired to their rooms. The young man studied
|
