| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Contrast by Royall Tyler: head would so run upon--upon--upon the solemn
ceremony that I was to pass through!--I declare, it
would take me above two hours merely to learn that
little monosyllable--Yes. Ah! my dear, your senti-
mental imagination does not conceive what that little
tiny word implies.
MARIA
Spare me your raillery, my sweet friend; I should
love your agreeable vivacity at any other time.
CHARLOTTE
Why, this is the very time to amuse you. You
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain: you've done."
"And have you done any better, I'd like to know? I've
always used to get up with the lark, till I came under
the petrifying influence of your turgid intellect."
"YOU used to get up with the lark--Oh, no doubt--
you'll get up with the hangman one of these days.
But you ought to be ashamed to be jawing here like this,
in a red blanket, on a forty-foot scaffold on top
of the Alps. And no end of people down here to boot;
this isn't any place for an exhibition of temper."
And so the customary quarrel went on. When the sun
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: priests came and administered the sacraments.
"At midnight he died; the scene that morning had exhausted his
remaining strength, and on the stroke of midnight I arrived with Daddy
Gobseck. The house was in confusion, and under cover of it we walked
up into the little salon adjoining the death-chamber. The three
children were there in tears, with two priests, who had come to watch
with the dead. Ernest came over to me, and said that his mother
desired to be alone in the Count's room.
" 'Do not go in,' he said; and I admired the child for his tone and
gesture; 'she is praying there.'
"Gobseck began to laugh that soundless laugh of his, but I felt too
Gobseck |
