| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: ``I shall not fly the trial,'' said the yeoman, with
the composure which marked his whole deportment.
``Meanwhile, stand up, ye Saxon churls,'' said
the fiery Prince; ``for, by the light of Heaven,
since I have said it, the Jew shall have his seat
amongst ye!''
``By no means, an it please your Grace!---it is
not fit for such as we to sit with the rulers of the
land,'' said the Jew; whose ambition for precedence
though it had led him to dispute Place with
the extenuated and impoverished descendant of the
Ivanhoe |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: with a kind of guarded gentleness.
Mary, accordingly, retired to make preparations in the pantry.
"What in the world are they after?" she asked of her own reflection in
the little looking-glass which hung there. She was not left to doubt
much longer, for, on coming back into the sitting-room with the tea-
things, Katharine informed her, apparently having been instructed so
to do by William, of their engagement.
"William," she said, "thinks that perhaps you don't know. We are going
to be married."
Mary found herself shaking William's hand, and addressing her
congratulations to him, as if Katharine were inaccessible; she had,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: pointed out for death by no less a man than Mr. Dennis Kearney.
Kearney is a man too well known in California, but a word of
explanation is required for English readers. Originally an Irish
dray-man, he rose, by his command of bad language, to almost
dictatorial authority in the State; throned it there for six months
or so, his mouth full of oaths, gallowses, and conflagrations; was
first snuffed out last winter by Mr. Coleman, backed by his San
Francisco Vigilantes and three gatling guns; completed his own ruin
by throwing in his lot with the grotesque Green-backer party; and
had at last to be rescued by his old enemies, the police, out of
the hands of his rebellious followers. It was while he was at the
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