| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells: "Eh?" said one of the men, turning.
"What news from the common?" I said.
"'Ain't yer just BEEN there?" asked the men.
"People seem fair silly about the common," said the woman
over the gate. "What's it all abart?"
"Haven't you heard of the men from Mars?" said I; "the
creatures from Mars?"
"Quite enough," said the woman over the gate. "Thenks";
and all three of them laughed.
I felt foolish and angry. I tried and found I could not tell
them what I had seen. They laughed again at my broken
 War of the Worlds |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: Villefort, and refreshed his memory. "To-day," he said with
an effort, -- "to-day the man who holds the blade of justice
must strike wherever there is guilt." Involuntarily his eyes
wandered towards the window of Noirtier's room, where he had
seen him the preceding night. The curtain was drawn, and yet
the image of his father was so vivid to his mind that he
addressed the closed window as though it had been open, and
as if through the opening he had beheld the menacing old
man. "Yes," he murmured, -- "yes, be satisfied."
His head dropped upon his chest, and in this position he
paced his study; then he threw himself, dressed as he was,
 The Count of Monte Cristo |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: Guard." Fraisier's silence and acquiescence, the rapt attention with
which he appeared to listen to a torrent of gossip similar to the
samples previously given, dispelled some of the prejudices inspired in
La Cibot's mind by his squalid surroundings. The little lawyer with
the black-speckled green eyes was in reality making a study of his
client. When at length she came to a stand and looked to him to speak,
he was seized with a fit of the complaint known as a "churchyard
cough," and had recourse to an earthenware basin half full of herb
tea, which he drained.
"But for Poulain, my dear madame, I should have been dead before
this," said Fraisier, by way of answer to the portress' look of
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