| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: "Well," he said cheerfully. "How did you sleep after keeping me up
half the night?"
I slid my hand around: the purse was well covered. "Have it now,
or wait till I get the cork out?" he rattled on.
"I don't want anything," I protested. "I wish you wouldn't be so
darned cheerful, Richey." He stopped whistling to stare at me.
"'I am saddest when I sing!'" he quoted unctuously. "It's pure
reaction, Lollie. Yesterday the sky was low: I was digging for my
best friend. To-day - he lies before me, his peevish self.
Yesterday I thought the notes were burned: to-day - I look forward
to a good cross-country chase, and with luck we will draw." His
The Man in Lower Ten |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Roads of Destiny by O. Henry: preference, home, or vote. He only came always to my table and, as
long as his leisure would permit, let words flutter from him like
swallows leaving a barn at daylight.
"How did the cigar-case come to be broken, Eighteen?" I asked, with a
certain feeling of personal grievance.
"I can tell you about that, sir," said he, resting his foot on the
chair next to mine. "Did you ever have anybody hand you a double
handful of good luck while both your hands were full of bad luck, and
stop to notice how your fingers behaved?"
"No riddles, Eighteen," said I. "Leave out palmistry and manicuring."
"You remember," said Eighteen, "the guy in the hammered brass Prince
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: BOY: It ought.
SOCRATES: Try and see if you can tell me how much it will be.
BOY: Three feet.
SOCRATES: Then if we add a half to this line of two, that will be the line
of three. Here are two and there is one; and on the other side, here are
two also and there is one: and that makes the figure of which you speak?
BOY: Yes.
SOCRATES: But if there are three feet this way and three feet that way,
the whole space will be three times three feet?
BOY: That is evident.
SOCRATES: And how much are three times three feet?
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