| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: when you know how little he calculates?"
"Forgive me, I do know it. But you tell me things that act on my
nerves. I'm sure he hadn't caught a glimpse of anything but some
splendid idea."
Mrs. Mulville brightly concurred. "And perhaps even of her
beautiful listening face."
"Perhaps even! And what was it all about?"
"His talk? It was apropos of her engagement, which I had told him
about: the idea of marriage, the philosophy, the poetry, the
sublimity of it." It was impossible wholly to restrain one's mirth
at this, and some rude ripple that I emitted again caused my
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: wanted the water in it set out in cut glass decanters. Hoot, for ye!'
"But, as I said, the owning of so much money was beginning to give me
philanthropitis. It was the first time me and Andy had ever made a
pile big enough to make us stop and think how we got it.
"'Andy,' says I, 'we're wealthy--not beyond the dreams of average; but
in our humble way we are comparatively as rich as Greasers. I feel as
if I'd like to do something for as well as to humanity.'
"'I was thinking the same thing, Jeff,' says he. 'We've been gouging
the public for a long time with all kinds of little schemes from
selling self-igniting celluloid collars to flooding Georgia with Hoke
Smith presidential campaign buttons. I'd like, myself, to hedge a bet
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey: nor pleasure from it, nor see any release from the habit of years.
One afternoon, late in the fall, she motored out to a Long Island club
where the last of the season's golf was being enjoyed by some of her most
intimate friends. Carley did not play. Aimlessly she walked around the
grounds, finding the autumn colors subdued and drab, like her mind. The air
held a promise of early winter. She thought that she would go South before
the cold came. Always trying to escape anything rigorous, hard, painful, or
disagreeable! Later she returned to the clubhouse to find her party assembled
on an inclosed porch, chatting and partaking of refreshment. Morrison
was there. He had not taken kindly to her late habit of denying herself to
him.
The Call of the Canyon |
