| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: in France or elsewhere, you will see that my facts are true. If you
have human hearts in you, you will see in them, it seems to me, an
explanation of many a guillotinade and fusillade, as yet explained
only on the ground of madness--an hypothesis which (as we do not yet
in the least understand what madness is) is no explanation at all.
An age of decay, incoherence, and makeshift, varnish and gilding
upon worm-eaten furniture, and mouldering wainscot, was that same
Ancien Regime. And for that very reason a picturesque age; like one
of its own landscapes. A picturesque bit of uncultivated mountain,
swarming with the prince's game; a picturesque old robber schloss
above, now in ruins; and below, perhaps, the picturesque new
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: State if there is an AUDIENCE present; or if they are ALONE.
Y.M. What have these things to do with the splendid act?
O.M. Very much. Shall we suppose, as a beginning, that the
two are alone, in a solitary place, at midnight?
Y.M. If you choose.
O.M. And that the fellow-being is the man's daughter?
Y.M. Well, n-no--make it someone else.
O.M. A filthy, drunken ruffian, then?
Y.M. I see. Circumstances alter cases. I suppose that if there
was no audience to observe the act, the man wouldn't perform it.
O.M. But there is here and there a man who WOULD. People,
What is Man? |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lost Continent by Edgar Rice Burroughs: and struck her across the mouth with his fist.
Instantly my blood boiled, and forgetting every
consideration of caution, I leaped from my concealment, and,
springing to the man's side, felled him with a blow.
So unexpected had been my act that it found him and his
fellow unprepared; but instantly the latter drew the knife
that protruded from his belt and lunged viciously at me, at
the same time giving voice to a wild cry of alarm.
The girl shrank back at sight of me, her eyes wide in
astonishment, and then my antagonist was upon me. I parried
his first blow with my forearm, at the same time delivering
Lost Continent |
