| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain: "Because I have a right to. Perhaps you will be good enough to
explain to the house why YOU rise."
"With great pleasure. Because I wrote that paper."
"It is an impudent falsity! I wrote it myself."
It was Burgess's turn to be paralysed. He stood looking vacantly at
first one of the men and then the other, and did not seem to know
what to do. The house was stupefied. Lawyer Wilson spoke up now,
and said:
"I ask the Chair to read the name signed to that paper."
That brought the Chair to itself, and it read out the name:
"John Wharton BILLSON."
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Blix by Frank Norris:
"All!" he retorted. "All! Why, it's past four now--and I'd
forgotten every last thing." Then suddenlly falling calm again,
and quietly resuming his seat: "I don't see as it makes any
difference. I won't go, that's all. Push those almonds here,
will you, Miss Lady?--But we aren't DOING anything," he exclaimed,
with a brusque return of exuberance. "Let's do things. What'll
we do? Think of something. Is there anything we can break?" Then,
without any transition, he vaulted upon the table and began to
declaim, with tremendous gestures:
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Legend of Montrose by Walter Scott: replenishing the quaigh with all possible dispatch, "I drink to
your honourable health, and fulfilment of all your virtuous
desires--and, reverend sir" (not forgetting to fit the action to
the words), "I fill this cup to the drowning of all unkindness
betwixt you and Captain Dalgetty--I should say Major--and, in
respect the flagon contains but one cup more, I drink to the
health of all honourable cavaliers and brave soldados--and, the
flask being empty, I am ready, Sir Duncan, to attend your
functionary or sentinel to my place of private repose."
He received a formal permission to retire, and an assurance, that
as the wine seemed to be to his taste, another measure of the
|
