| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: chosen this work, he said, because the declamatory style was framed
in imitation of the Eastern authors. Through this work I obtained
a cursory knowledge of history and a view of the several empires
at present existing in the world; it gave me an insight into the
manners, governments, and religions of the different nations of
the earth. I heard of the slothful Asiatics, of the stupendous genius
and mental activity of the Grecians, of the wars and wonderful virtue
of the early Romans--of their subsequent degenerating--of the decline
of that mighty empire, of chivalry, Christianity, and kings.
I heard of the discovery of the American hemisphere and wept
with Safie over the hapless fate of its original inhabitants.
Frankenstein |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: presently drained into a burn that made off, with little
noise and no celerity of pace, about the corner of the hill.
On the far side the ground swelled into a bare heath, black
with junipers, and spotted with the presence of the standing
stones for which the place was famous. They were many in
that part, shapeless, white with lichen - you would have said
with age: and had made their abode there for untold
centuries, since first the heathens shouted for their
installation. The ancients had hallowed them to some ill
religion, and their neighbourhood had long been avoided by
the prudent before the fall of day; but of late, on the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: expected to inherit from your sister. She is still a minor and
your father's will would have given you only ten thousand guldens.
"But you forget that Asta will be twenty-four on the third of
December."
"Ah, then you would have kept her alive until then."
"You understand quickly," said Langen with a mocking smile.
"But she disappeared on the eighteenth of November. How could you
prove that she died after her birthday, therefore in full possession
of her fortune and without leaving any will?"
"That is very simple. I buy several newspapers every day. I would
have taken them up to the fourth and fifth of December and left them
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