| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: spacious chambers to rest awhile before they attempted to return.
"We have now," said Imlac, "gratified our minds with an exact view
of the greatest work of man, except the wall of China.
"Of the wall it is very easy to assign the motive. It secured a
wealthy and timorous nation from the incursions of barbarians,
whose unskilfulness in the arts made it easier for them to supply
their wants by rapine than by industry, and who from time to time
poured in upon the inhabitants of peaceful commerce as vultures
descend upon domestic fowl. Their celerity and fierceness made the
wall necessary, and their ignorance made it efficacious.
"But for the Pyramids, no reason has ever been given adequate to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from McTeague by Frank Norris: Spanish-American. Miss Baker was the oldest lodger in the
flat, and Maria was a fixture there as maid of all work
when she had come. There was a legend to the effect that
Maria's people had been at one time immensely wealthy in
Central America.
Maria turned again to her work. Trina and Marcus watched
her curiously. There was a silence. The corundum burr in
McTeague's engine hummed in a prolonged monotone. The
canary bird chittered occasionally. The room was warm, and
the breathing of the five people in the narrow space made
the air close and thick. At long intervals an acrid odor of
McTeague |
