| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Red Seal by Natalie Sumner Lincoln: "He left this, sir, for you with most particular directions that it
be handed to you at once on your arrival."
Kent read the curt message on the card without comment and tore the
paste-board into tiny bits.
"Any one else been in this morning?" he asked.
"Yes, sir." Sylvester consulted a written memorandum. "Mr. Black
called, also Colonel Thorne, Senator Harris, and Mrs. Brewster."
"Mrs. Brewster!" The newspaper slipped from Kent's fingers in his
astonishment. "What did she want here?"
"To see you, sir, so she said, but she first asked for Mr.
Rochester," explained Sylvester, stooping over to pick up the
The Red Seal |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: upon my cheek - more warm and friendly to man, than what Burgundy
(at least of two livres a bottle, which was such as I had been
drinking) could have produced.
- Just God! said I, kicking my portmanteau aside, what is there in
this world's goods which should sharpen our spirits, and make so
many kind-hearted brethren of us fall out so cruelly as we do by
the way?
When man is at peace with man, how much lighter than a feather is
the heaviest of metals in his hand! he pulls out his purse, and
holding it airily and uncompressed, looks round him, as if he
sought for an object to share it with. - In doing this, I felt
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Daisy Miller by Henry James: having gone to St. Peter's with his aunt, Winterbourne perceived Daisy
strolling about the great church in company with the inevitable Giovanelli.
Presently he pointed out the young girl and her cavalier to Mrs. Costello.
This lady looked at them a moment through her eyeglass, and then she said:
"That's what makes you so pensive in these days, eh?"
"I had not the least idea I was pensive," said the young man.
"You are very much preoccupied; you are thinking of something."
"And what is it," he asked, "that you accuse me of thinking of?"
"Of that young lady's--Miss Baker's, Miss Chandler's--what's her name?--
Miss Miller's intrigue with that little barber's block."
"Do you call it an intrigue," Winterbourne asked--"an affair that goes
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