| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: to your system, stand in need of examples, and how are they to hear of
them amid this general reticence? Again, there is this poor pontooner
of ours, who saved the whole French army, and who was never able to
tell his tale to any purpose; suppose that he had lost the use of his
limbs, would the consciousness of what he had done have found him in
bread? Answer me that, philosopher!"
"Perhaps the rules of morality cannot be absolute," Benassis answered;
"though this is a dangerous idea, for it leaves the egoist free to
settle cases of conscience in his own favor. Listen, captain; is not
the man who never swerves from the principles of morality greater than
he who transgresses them, even through necessity? Would not our
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: that pitch that I didn't care a hang. I have been wakened out of
my sleep to hear a woman screaming, and I have only turned
upon my other side. Yes, it's a queer place, where the
dowagers and the kids walk all day, and at night you can hear
people bawling for help as if it was the Forest of Bondy, with
the lights of a great town all round, and parties spinning
through in cabs from Government House and dinner with my
lord!"
It was Norris's diversion, having none other, to scrape
acquaintance, where, how, and with whom he could. Many a
long dull talk he held upon the benches or the grass; many a
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: heard the deflected shot humming through the air ahead, and
in an instant it was cracking and smashing the branches in
the forest beyond.
"They will not do that again," he thought; "the next time
they will use a charge of grape. I must keep my eye upon
the gun; the smoke will apprise me -- the report arrives too
late; it lags behind the missile. That is a good gun."
Suddenly he felt himself whirled round and round -- spinning
like a top. The water, the banks, the forests, the now
distant bridge, fort and men, all were commingled and
blurred. Objects were represented by their colors only;
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
