| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas: Cromwell placed his hand on a hidden handle and opened a
door so well concealed by the tapestry that the most
practiced eye could not have discovered it. It closed after
him with a spring. This door communicated with a
subterranean passage, leading under the street to a grotto
in the garden of a house about a hundred yards from that of
the future Protector.
It was just before this that Grimaud had perceived the two
men seated together.
D'Artagnan was the first to recover from his surprise.
"Mordaunt," he cried. "Ah! by Heaven! it is God Himself who
Twenty Years After |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: adorned the better. Now, on the contrary, she was perforce decked
out in a way so inconsistent with her age and her figure, that
her one anxiety was to contrive that the contrast between these
adornments and her own exterior should not be too appalling. And
as far as Alexey Alexandrovitch was concerned she succeeded, and
was in his eyes attractive. For him she was the one island not
only of good-will to him, but of love in the midst of the sea of
hostility and jeering that surrounded him.
Passing through rows of ironical eyes, he was drawn as naturally
to her loving glance as a plant to the sun.
"I congratulate you," she said to him, her eyes on his ribbon.
Anna Karenina |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith: [Exit.]
Enter MARLOW, followed by a Servant.
MARLOW. I wonder what Hastings could mean by sending me so valuable a
thing as a casket to keep for him, when he knows the only place I have
is the seat of a post-coach at an inn-door. Have you deposited the
casket with the landlady, as I ordered you? Have you put it into her
own hands?
SERVANT. Yes, your honour.
MARLOW. She said she'd keep it safe, did she?
SERVANT. Yes, she said she'd keep it safe enough; she asked me how I
came by it; and she said she had a great mind to make me give an
She Stoops to Conquer |
