| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar: spring that comes from a perfectly arched foot. To-day she swept
swiftly down Marais Street, casting a quick glance here and there
from under her heavy veil as if she feared she was being
followed. If you had peered under the veil, you would have seen
that Manuela's dark eyes were swollen and discoloured about the
lids, as though they had known a sleepless, tearful night.
There had been a picnic the day before, and as merry a crowd of
giddy, chattering Creole girls and boys as ever you could see
boarded the ramshackle dummy-train that puffed its way wheezily
out wide Elysian Fields Street, around the lily-covered bayous,
to Milneburg-on-the-Lake. Now, a picnic at Milneburg is a thing
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: barriers which your prudence has raised, I
will be brief in noticing that which is more
peculiar to myself. It seems to be your opinion,
that the very office of an antiquary, employed
in grave, and, as the vulgar will sometimes
allege, in toilsome and minute research,
must be considered as incapacitating him from
successfully compounding a tale of this sort.
But permit me to say, my dear Doctor, that
this objection is rather formal than substantial.
It is true, that such slight compositions
Ivanhoe |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Pathology of Lying, Etc. by William and Mary Healy: under investigation Gertrude stayed away from home several
nights, two of which have never been accounted for. She told
fairly plausible stories about going out of town, but she first
should have studied time tables to make them wholly convincing.
The mother, too, told that the girl had been out of town, but in
this she was caught, for it was found that Gertrude had been part
of the time with other relatives.
The main story of the check involved a man who worked in the same
office. She stated that he made an immoral proposal to her on
the basis of immunity from prosecution. After a couple of months
Gertrude got round to confessing that she alone was responsible
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