| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: by means of a cast-iron pipe. When, in 1836, the old stone sewer
beneath the Faubourg Saint-Honore, in which we now see Jean Valjean,
was demolished for the purpose of reconstructing it, the quicksand,
which forms the subsoil of the Champs-Elysees as far as the Seine,
presented such an obstacle, that the operation lasted nearly
six months, to the great clamor of the dwellers on the riverside,
particularly those who had hotels and carriages. The work was
more than unhealthy; it was dangerous. It is true that they
had four months and a half of rain, and three floods of the Seine.
The fontis which Jean Valjean had encountered was caused by the
downpour of the preceding day. The pavement, badly sustained
Les Miserables |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: all the Vanderbilts in Greenland won't be able to turn me out in the
cold--I mean make it hot for me.'
"'Tell us about one of your trips, Lieutenant,' says one of the
normals.
"'Sure,' says Andy, getting the decision over a hiccup. 'It was in the
spring of last year that I sailed the Castle of Blenheim up to
latitude 87 degrees Fahrenheit and beat the record. Ladies,' says
Andy, 'it was a sad sight to see a Duke allied by a civil and
liturgical chattel mortgage to one of your first families lost in a
region of semiannual days.' And then he goes on, 'At four bells we
sighted Westminster Abbey, but there was not a drop to eat. At noon we
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: thinking of him again. It wasn't for anything he had done to me;
it was for what he had done to the Mulvilles. Adelaide cried about
it for a week, and her husband, profiting by the example so
signally given him of the fatal effect of a want of character, left
the letter, the drop too much, unanswered. The letter, an
incredible one, addressed by Saltram to Wimbledon during a stay
with the Pudneys at Ramsgate, was the central feature of the
incident, which, however, had many features, each more painful than
whichever other we compared it with. The Pudneys had behaved
shockingly, but that was no excuse. Base ingratitude, gross
indecency--one had one's choice only of such formulas as that the
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