| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Red Seal by Natalie Sumner Lincoln: kept waiting, and that morning she had many errands to attend to
before the luncheon hour.
"May I use your telephone?" she asked Mr. Clymer's secretary, and
the young man rose with alacrity from his desk. Mrs. Brewster never
knew what it was to lack attention, even her own sex were known on
occasions to give her gowns and, (what captious critics termed her
"frivolous conduct") undivided attention.
"Can I look up the number for you?" the secretary asked as Mrs.
Brewster took up the telephone book and fumbled for the gold chain
of her lorgnette.
"Oh, thank you," her smile showed each pretty dimple. "I wish to
The Red Seal |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Professor by Charlotte Bronte: since, to take tea out on the lawn; I see the round table, loaded
with china, placed under a certain beech; Hunsden is expected
--nay, I hear he is come--there is his voice, laying down the law
on some point with authority; that of Frances replies; she
opposes him of course. They are disputing about Victor, of whom
Hunsden affirms that his mother is making a milksop. Mrs.
Crimsworth retaliates:--
"Better a thousand times he should be a milksop than what he,
Hunsden, calls 'a fine lad;' and moreover she says that if
Hunsden were to become a fixture in the neighbourhood, and were
not a mere comet, coming and going, no one knows how, when,
The Professor |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: other reformers of mankind, and originates in an accident. The dedication
of himself to the improvement of his fellow-citizens is not so remarkable
as the ironical spirit in which he goes about doing good only in
vindication of the credit of the oracle, and in the vain hope of finding a
wiser man than himself. Yet this singular and almost accidental character
of his mission agrees with the divine sign which, according to our notions,
is equally accidental and irrational, and is nevertheless accepted by him
as the guiding principle of his life. Socrates is nowhere represented to
us as a freethinker or sceptic. There is no reason to doubt his sincerity
when he speculates on the possibility of seeing and knowing the heroes of
the Trojan war in another world. On the other hand, his hope of
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