| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Book of Remarkable Criminals by H. B. Irving: there travelled via Collingham to Hull. He went straight to the
eating-house kept by his wife, and demanded some dinner. He had
hardly commenced to eat it when he heard two detectives come into
the front shop and ask his wife if a man called Charles Peace was
lodging with her. Mrs. Peace said that that was her husband's
name, but that she had not seen him for two months. The
detectives proposed to search the house. Some customers in
the shop told them that if they had any business with Mrs.
Peace, they ought to go round to the side door. The polite
susceptibility of these customers gave Peace time to slip up to a
back room, get out on to an adjoining roof, and hide behind a
A Book of Remarkable Criminals |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lin McLean by Owen Wister: think he'd stay away after the trouble he--I expect that pinto is Jerky
Bill's."
"Go home!" said a hearty voice.
McLean eagerly turned. For the moment his face lighted from its
sombreness. "I'd forgot you'd be here," said he. And he sprang to the
ground. "It's fine to see you."
"Go home!" repeated the Governor of Wyoming, shaking his ancient friend's
hand. "You in Drybone to-night, and claim you're reformed?
"Yu' seem to be on hand yourself," said the cow-puncher, bracing to be
jocular, if he could.
"Me! I've gone fishing. Don't you read the papers? If we poor governors
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: not in my veins, thank God, the ten-millionth of a drop of that
chilly blood which flows behind a counter. I come on one side from
Germany, on the other from the south of France; my mind has a
Teutonic love of reverie, my blood the vivacity of Provence. I am
noble on my father's and on my mother's side. On my mother's I
derive from every page of the Almanach de Gotha. In short, my
precautions are well taken. It is not in any man's power, nor even
in the power of the law, to unmask my incognito. I shall remain
veiled, unknown.
As to my person and as to my "belongings," as the Normans say,
make yourself easy. I am at least as handsome as the little girl
Modeste Mignon |
