| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Under the Andes by Rex Stout: light,
I halted and turned, while Evans approached from the inner rooms,
rubbing eyes heavy with sleep.
Good old Evans! Yet the faithfulness of such a servant has
its disadvantages.
"Well?" said Harry in a thin, high voice.
The boy's nerves were stretched tightly; two words from me
would have produced an explosion. So I clapped him on the
shoulder
and sent him off to bed. He went sulkily, without looking round,
and his shoulders drooped like those of an old man; but I
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: those two, who of late had so haunted his thoughts. The sight of
either of them would have been sufficiently disconcerting. The
sight of both together very nearly made him forget the purpose for
which he had come upon the stage. Then he pulled himself together,
and played. He played, he says, with an unusual nerve, and never
in all that brief but eventful career of his was he more applauded.
That was the evening's first shock. The next came after the second
act. Entering the green-room he found it more thronged than usual,
and at the far end with Climene, over whom he was bending from his
fine height, his eyes intent upon her face, what time his smiling
lips moved in talk, M. de La Tour d'Azyr. He had her entirely to
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: still maintains, however, that he understands the art of the general as
well as any one. 'Then why in this city of Athens, in which men of merit
are always being sought after, is he not at once appointed a general?' Ion
replies that he is a foreigner, and the Athenians and Spartans will not
appoint a foreigner to be their general. 'No, that is not the real reason;
there are many examples to the contrary. But Ion has long been playing
tricks with the argument; like Proteus, he transforms himself into a
variety of shapes, and is at last about to run away in the disguise of a
general. Would he rather be regarded as inspired or dishonest?' Ion, who
has no suspicion of the irony of Socrates, eagerly embraces the alternative
of inspiration.
|
