| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Herbert West: Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft: West’s scientific zeal had degenerated to an unhealthy and fantastic
mania, and he had spent his chief skill in vitalising not entire
human bodies but isolated parts of bodies, or parts joined to
organic matter other than human. It had become fiendishly disgusting
by the time he disappeared; many of the experiments could not
even be hinted at in print. The Great War, through which both
of us served as surgeons, had intensified this side of West.
In
saying that West’s fear of his specimens was nebulous, I have
in mind particularly its complex nature. Part of it came merely
from knowing of the existence of such nameless monsters, while
 Herbert West: Reanimator |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Oakdale Affair by Edgar Rice Burroughs: so doubtless each box must be five or six matches short
of full count. Even these papers seem thinner than of
yore and they will only sell one book to a customer at
that. Indeed Sherman was right."
The youth and the girl remained occupied with their
own thoughts, and after a moment's silence the vaga-
bond resumed:
"'Me? I was king of anywhere,
"'Peggin' away at nothing, hard.
"'Havin' no pet, particular care;
"'Havin' no trouble, or no pard;
 The Oakdale Affair |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: man understood nothing, felt nothing, save his own tortures, and gave
utterance only to frightful yells and unintelligible gibberish. At
last his life ended in a final attack of unutterable suffering.
Nothing could be found of all his great wealth; but when they beheld
the mutilated fragments of grand works of art, the value of which
exceeded a million, they understood the terrible use which had been
made of it.
PART II
A THRONG of carriages and other vehicles stood at the entrance of a
house in which an auction was going on of the effects of one of those
wealthy art-lovers who have innocently passed for Maecenases, and in a
 Taras Bulba and Other Tales |