| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Voice of the City by O. Henry: out twenty fifties without a word. I'll pay it back
some day. That thousand saved me and -- well, they
were piling my furniture out on the sidewalk when I
got back to the house."
"And so," continued Kernan, "you being Barney
Woods, born as true as steel, and bound to play a
white man's game, can't lift a finger to arrest the
man you're indebted to. Oh, I have to study men
as well as Yale locks and window fastenings in my
business. Now, keep quiet while I ring for the
waiter. I've had a thirst for a year or two that wor-
The Voice of the City |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: "You will not change your mind?" said the Virginian by the fire.
"It is thirty-five miles."
I shook my head, feeling a certain shame that he should see how
unnerved I was.
He swallowed a hot cupful, and after it sat thinking; and
presently he passed his hand across his brow, shutting his eyes.
Again he poured out a cup, and emptying this, rose abruptly to
his feet as if shaking himself free from something
"Let's pack and quit here," he said.
Our horses were in the corral and our belongings in the shelter
of what had been once the cabin at this forlorn place. He
The Virginian |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: beautiful shirt buttons--but what a pig of a fellow! I can't think what he
saw in such a plain girl--but you never know. Her mother says she's been
like fire ever since she was sixteen!"
Frau Brechenmacher looked down at her beer and blew a little hole in the
froth.
"That's not how a wedding should be," she said; "it's not religion to love
two men."
"Nice time she'll have with this one," Frau Rupp exclaimed. "He was
lodging with me last summer and I had to get rid of him. He never changed
his clothes once in two months, and when I spoke to him of the smell in his
room he told me he was sure it floated up from the shop. Ah, every wife
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