| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: an acute case of shopping fever before you know it. Nor will it be
much consolation subsequently to discover that you have squandered
your patrimony upon the most ordinary articles of every-day use.
If in despair you turn for refuge to the booths, you will but have
delivered yourself into the embrace of still more irresistible
fascinations. For the nocturnal squatters are there for the express
purpose of catching the susceptible. The shops were modestly
attractive from their nature, but the booths deliberately make eyes
at you, and with telling effect. The very atmosphere is bewitching.
The lurid smurkiness of the torches lends an appropriate weirdness
to the figure of the uncouthly clad pedlar who, with the politeness
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: for the purposes of this contract"--looking around with an air of
entire confidence.
"Gentlemen, are you ready for the question?" asked the president.
At this instant there was a slight commotion at the end of the
hall. Half a dozen men nearest the door left their seats and
crowded to the top of the staircase. Then came a voice outside:
"Fall back; don't block up the door! Get back there!" The
excitement was so great that the proceedings of the board were
stopped.
The throng parted, The men near the table stood still. An ominous
silence suddenly prevailed. Daniel McGaw twisted his head, turned
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: two tumblers, and beside a pile of blotted manuscripts,
altogether dissimilar to any law documents recognized in our
courts. My friend, whom I shall call Oberon,--it was a name of
fancy and friendship between him and me,--my friend Oberon looked
at these papers with a peculiar expression of disquietude.
"I do believe," said he, soberly, "or, at least, I could believe,
if I chose, that there is a devil in this pile of blotted papers.
You have read them, and know what I mean,--that conception in
which I endeavored to embody the character of a fiend, as
represented in our traditions and the written records of
witchcraft. Oh, I have a horror of what was created in my own
The Snow Image |
