| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tales and Fantasies by Robert Louis Stevenson: name, and twenty words of answer paid. I have been to the
cab office and paid your cab, even saw the old gentleman
himself, and properly apologised. He was mighty placable,
and indicated his belief you had been drinking. Then I
knocked up old Macewen out of bed, and explained affairs to
him as he sat and shivered in a dressing-gown. And before
that I had been to the High Street, where they have heard
nothing of your dead body, so that I incline to the idea that
you dreamed it.'
'Catch me!' said John.
'Well, the police never do know anything,' assented
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: Other, but still rare, encounters occur to my memory. I was
several times arrested by a tender sound in the bush of voices
talking, soft as flutes and with quiet intonations. Hope told a
flattering tale; I put aside the leaves; and behold! in place of
the expected dryads, a pair of all too solid ladies squatting over
a clay pipe in the ungraceful RIDI. The beauty of the voice and
the eye was all that remained to those vast dames; but that of the
voice was indeed exquisite. It is strange I should have never
heard a more winning sound of speech, yet the dialect should be one
remarkable for violent, ugly, and outlandish vocables; so that
Tembinok' himself declared it made him weary, and professed to find
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Droll Stories, V. 1 by Honore de Balzac: gowns, and their doublets appeared ready to burst, since they were
crammed with meat like Troyes sausages from the top to the bottom of
their paunches. Going into the saloon again, they broke into a profuse
sweat, began to blow, and to curse their gluttony. The king sat
quietly apart; each of them was the more willing to be silent because
all their forces were required for the intestinal digestion of the
huge platefuls confined in their stomachs, which began to wabble and
rumble violently. One said to himself, "I was stupid to eat of that
sauce." Another scolded himself for having indulged in a plate of eels
cooked with capers. Another thought to himself, "Oh! oh! The forcemeat
is serving me out." The cardinal, who was the biggest bellied man of
Droll Stories, V. 1 |
