| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Several Works by Edgar Allan Poe: cannot distinguish Sherry from Amontillado."
Thus speaking, Fortunato possessed himself of my arm.
Putting on a mask of black silk, and drawing a roquelaire
closely about my person, I suffered him to hurry me to my palazzo.
There were no attendants at home; they had absconded to make
merry in honour of the time. I had told them that I should not
return until the morning, and had given them explicit orders not to
stir from the house. These orders were sufficient, I well knew, to
insure their immediate disappearance, one and all, as soon as my
back was turned.
I took from their sconces two flambeaux, and giving one to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The American by Henry James: A few moments after this the doctor put his head through the half-opened
door and, perceiving that Valentin was awake, came in and felt his pulse.
He shook his head and declared that he had talked too much--
ten times too much. "Nonsense!" said Valentin; "a man sentenced
to death can never talk too much. Have you never read an account
of an execution in a newspaper? Don't they always set a lot of people
at the prisoner--lawyers, reporters, priests--to make him talk?
But it's not Mr. Newman's fault; he sits there as mum as a death's-head."
The doctor observed that it was time his patient's wound should be
dressed again; MM. de Grosjoyaux and Ledoux, who had already witnessed
this delicate operation, taking Newman's place as assistants.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: woman!)--she'd probably succeeded at last, and driven Paul crazy.
Suicide. Out there in the lake, way out, beyond the piled ice along the
shore. It would be ghastly cold to drop into the water to-night.
Or--throat cut--in the bathroom--
Babbitt flung into Paul's bathroom. It was empty. He smiled, feebly.
He pulled at his choking collar, looked at his watch, opened the window to
stare down at the street, looked at his watch, tried to read the evening paper
lying on the glass-topped bureau, looked again at his watch. Three minutes had
gone by since he had first looked at it.
And he waited for three hours.
He was sitting fixed, chilled, when the doorknob turned. Paul came in
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