| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: as your unit?" I 'wrote mentally. "I can not fold together like
the traveling cup with which I drink your abominable water."
I was more cheerful after I had had a cup of coffee in the Union
Station. It was too early to attend to business, and I lounged in
the restaurant and hid behind the morning papers. As I had expected,
they had got hold of my visit and its object. On the first page was
a staring announcement that the forged papers in the Bronson case
had been brought to Pittsburg. Underneath, a telegram from
Washington stated that Lawrence Blakeley, of Blakeley and McKnight,
had left for Pittsburg the night before, and that, owing to the
approaching trial of the Bronson case and the illness of John
The Man in Lower Ten |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: men entertain nearly the same notions and do nearly the same
things, they do not require to agree or to copy from one another
in order to speak or act in the same manner: their manners are
constantly characterized by a number of lesser diversities, but
not by any great differences. They are never perfectly alike,
because they do not copy from the same pattern; they are never
very unlike, because their social condition is the same. At
first sight a traveller would observe that the manners of all the
Americans are exactly similar; it is only upon close examination
that the peculiarities in which they differ may be detected.
The English make game of the manners of the Americans; but
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Octopus by Frank Norris: this sojourn he had brought back but two souvenirs, an electro-
plated bill-hook and an empty bird cage which had tickled his
fancy immensely.
He was wealthy. Only a year previous to this his father--a
widower, who had amassed a fortune in land speculation--had died,
and Annixter, the only son, had come into the inheritance.
For Presley, Annixter professed a great admiration, holding in
deep respect the man who could rhyme words, deferring to him
whenever there was question of literature or works of fiction.
No doubt, there was not much use in poetry, and as for novels, to
his mind, there were only Dickens's works. Everything else was a
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