| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: calf, or sow when they are ready to farrow; nor offer to beat or
kick them (as is too frequent a practice) for fear of a
miscarriage.
Many other advantages might be enumerated. For instance, the
addition of some thousand carcasses in our exportation of
barrel'd beef: the propagation of swine's flesh, and improvement
in the art of making good bacon, so much wanted among us by the
great destruction of pigs, too frequent at our tables; which are
no way comparable in taste or magnificence to a well grown, fat
yearly child, which roasted whole will make a considerable figure
at a Lord Mayor's feast, or any other publick entertainment. But
A Modest Proposal |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson: "Shall I give ye the rest of the name, then?" said Alan.
There was a pause; and then, "I'm thinking I'll better let ye
in," says my uncle, doubtfully.
"I dare say that," said Alan; "but the point is, Would I go? Now
I will tell you what I am thinking. I am thinking that it is
here upon this doorstep that we must confer upon this business;
and it shall be here or nowhere at all whatever; for I would have
you to understand that I am as stiffnecked as yoursel', and a
gentleman of better family."
This change of note disconcerted Ebenezer; he was a little while
digesting it, and then says he, "Weel, weel, what must be must,"
Kidnapped |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: square, to whom she was apparently relating something. A solicitor,
named Sinot, who numbered all the royalists of Arcis among his
clients, and who had not gone to the Giguet meeting, now detached
himself from the group, and running to the door of the Marion house
rang the bell violently.
"What can be the matter?" said Frederic Marest, dropping his eyeglass,
and calling the attention of his colleagues to this circumstance.
"The matter is, messieurs," said the sub-prefect, thinking it useless
to keep a secret which was evidently known to the other party, "that
Charles Keller has been killed in Africa, and that this event doubles
the chances of Simon Giguet. You know Arcis; there can be no other
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