| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: "I live in it."
"That you may censure it the better."
"Would you have me take the verdict of Europe on it?" he inquired.
"What do they say of us?"
"That Tartuffe has emigrated to England and opened a shop."
"Is that yours, Harry?"
"I give it to you."
"I could not use it. It is too true."
"You need not be afraid. Our countrymen never recognize a description."
"They are practical."
"They are more cunning than practical. When they make up their ledger,
The Picture of Dorian Gray |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs: could scarce attend to aught else for the lure of the wondrous
puzzle which their purpose presented to him.
Among the other books were a primer, some child's readers,
numerous picture books, and a great dictionary. All of
these he examined, but the pictures caught his fancy most,
though the strange little bugs which covered the pages where
there were no pictures excited his wonder and deepest thought.
Squatting upon his haunches on the table top in the cabin
his father had built--his smooth, brown, naked little body
bent over the book which rested in his strong slender hands, and
his great shock of long, black hair falling about his well-
Tarzan of the Apes |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Russia in 1919 by Arthur Ransome: very fierce indeed, would have ended in assault, but here
it ended in nothing but the collection on the platform of a
small crowd of experts in bad language who applauded
verbal hits with impartiality and enthusiasm.
At last I tried to sleep, but the atmosphere in the carriage, of
smoke, babies, stale clothes, and the peculiar smell of the
Russian peasantry which no one who has known it can
forget, made sleep impossible. But I travelled fairly
comfortably, resolutely shutting my ears to the talk, thinking
of fishing in England, and shifting from one bone to another
as each ached in turn from contact with the plank on which I
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