| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde: as the case may be. It is hardly a matter that she could be
allowed to arrange for herself . . . And now I have a few questions
to put to you, Mr. Worthing. While I am making these inquiries,
you, Gwendolen, will wait for me below in the carriage.
GWENDOLEN. [Reproachfully.] Mamma!
LADY BRACKNELL. In the carriage, Gwendolen! [GWENDOLEN goes to
the door. She and JACK blow kisses to each other behind LADY
BRACKNELL'S back. LADY BRACKNELL looks vaguely about as if she
could not understand what the noise was. Finally turns round.]
Gwendolen, the carriage!
GWENDOLEN. Yes, mamma. [Goes out, looking back at JACK.]
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: sick of the sight of them, and end by thrusting some cold scrap of
a final couplet upon them, and turning them out of doors. I
suspect a good many "impromptus" could tell just such a story as
the above. - Here turning to our landlady, I used an illustration
which pleased the company much at the time, and has since been
highly commanded. "Madam," I said, "you can pour three gills and
three quarters of honey from that pint jug, if it is full, in less
than one minute; but, Madam, you could not empty that last quarter
of a gill, though you were turned into a marble Hebe, and held the
vessel upside down for a thousand years.
One gets tired to death of the old, old rhymes, such as you see in
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: far beneath the surface of Mars, my princess lay entombed--
but whether alive or dead I knew not. Had Phaidor's slim blade
found that beloved heart? Time only would reveal the truth.
Six hundred and eighty-seven Martian days must come and go
before the cell's door would again come opposite the tunnel's
end where last I had seen my ever-beautiful Dejah Thoris.
Half of them had passed, or would on the morrow, yet vivid in
my memory, obliterating every event that had come before or after,
there remained the last scene before the gust of smoke blinded my
The Warlord of Mars |
