| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie: as indifferent as I could.
"I didn't go," she replied abruptly. "Where is Mrs. Inglethorp?"
"In the boudoir."
Her hand clenched itself on the banisters, then she seemed to
nerve herself for some encounter, and went rapidly past me down
the stairs across the hall to the boudoir, the door of which she
shut behind her.
As I ran out to the tennis court a few moments later, I had to
pass the open boudoir window, and was unable to help overhearing
the following scrap of dialogue. Mary Cavendish was saying in
the voice of a woman desperately controlling herself:
The Mysterious Affair at Styles |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Summer by Edith Wharton: Targatt girl's sing-song. Why had Mr. Miles suddenly
brought up Annabel Balch's name?
"Oh, really?" she heard Harney rejoin; and, raising his
stick, he pursued: "You see, my plan is to move these
shelves away, and open a round window in this wall, on
the axis of the one under the pediment."
"I suppose she'll be coming up here later to stay with
Miss Hatchard?" Mr. Miles went on, following on his
train of thought; then, spinning about and tilting his
head back: "Yes, yes, I see--I understand: that
will give a draught without materially altering the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: over which Britain extends her claim, make large demands upon her navy.
From a mixture of prejudice and inattention, we have contracted a false
notion respecting the navy of England, and have talked as if we should
have the whole of it to encounter at once, and for that reason, supposed,
that we must have one as large; which not being instantly practicable,
have been made use of by a set of disguised Tories to discourage
our beginning thereon. Nothing can be farther from truth than this;
for if America had only a twentieth part of the naval force of Britain,
she would be by far an overmatch for her; because, as we neither have,
nor claim any foreign dominion, our whole force would be employed on
our own coast, where we should, in the long run, have two to one the advantage
Common Sense |
