| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James: you would help me to make them good."
"I can't do that without being false to my aunt."
"What do you mean, being false to her?"
"Why, she would never consent to what you want. She has been asked,
she has been written to. It made her fearfully angry."
"Then she HAS got papers of value?" I demanded quickly.
"Oh, she has got everything!" sighed Miss Tita with a curious weariness,
a sudden lapse into gloom.
These words caused all my pulses to throb, for I regarded them
as precious evidence. For some minutes I was too agitated to speak,
and in the interval the gondola approached the Piazzetta.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Last War: A World Set Free by H. G. Wells: and a meadow beyond, and some trees, and in the air a black,
pencil-like object with flat wings on either side of it. It was
the first record of the first apparatus heavier than air that
ever maintained itself in the air by mechanical force. Across the
margin was written: 'Here we go up, up, up--from S. P. Langley,
Smithsonian Institution, Washington.'
The father watched the effect of this reassuring document upon
his son. 'Well?' he said.
'That,' said the schoolboy, after reflection, 'is only a model.'
'Model to-day, man to-morrow.'
The boy seemed divided in his allegiance. Then he decided for
The Last War: A World Set Free |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Mansion by Henry van Dyke: The road was not a formal highway, fenced and graded. It was
more like
a great travel-trace, worn by thousands of feet passing across
the open country in the same direction. Down in the valley,
into which he could look, the road seemed to form itself
gradually out of
many minor paths; little footways coming across the meadows,
winding tracks following along beside the streams, faintly marked
trails
emerging from the woodlands. But on the hillside the threads
were more
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