| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: and remorselessly dwelt upon is that Mr. Rockefeller's contribution is
incurably tainted by perjury--perjury proved against him in the courts.
IT MAKES US SMILE--down in my place! Because there isn't a rich
man in your vast city who doesn't perjure himself every year before
the tax board. They are all caked with perjury, many layers thick.
Iron-clad, so to speak. If there is one that isn't, I desire
to acquire him for my museum, and will pay Dinosaur rates.
Will you say it isn't infraction of the law, but only annual evasion
of it? Comfort yourselves with that nice distinction if you like--
FOR THE PRESENT. But by and by, when you arrive, I will show you
something interesting: a whole hell-full of evaders! Sometimes a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Light of Western Stars by Zane Grey: know there's trouble over there. So all that's left is to hit
the trail for home. Come, let's ride. You stick like a Spanish
needle to me."
A heavy growth of mesquite covered the top of the first ridge,
and the trail went through it. Florence took the lead,
proceeding cautiously, and as soon as she could see over the
summit she used the field-glass. Then she went on. Madeline,
following closely, saw down the slope of the ridge to a bare,
wide, grassy hollow, and onward to more rolling land, thick with
cactus and mesquite. Florence appeared cautious, deliberate, yet
she lost no time. She was ominously silent. Madeline's
The Light of Western Stars |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: garden seeds, lumbago lotion, stock certificates, stove polish or a
crack on the head to show for his money. I guess I must have had New
England ancestors away back and inherited some of their stanch and
rugged fear of the police.
"But Andy's family tree was in different kind. I don't think he could
have traced his descent any further back than a corporation.
"One summer while we was in the middle West, working down the Ohio
valley with a line of family albums, headache powders and roach
destroyer, Andy takes one of his notions of high and actionable
financiering.
"'Jeff,' says he, 'I've been thinking that we ought to drop these
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