| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy: asked from behind the counter what they required.
"A nice frame, if you please, madam."
"At what price?" asked the woman; she wore
mittens on her swollen fingers with which she rap-
idly handled picture-frames of different shapes.
"These are fifty kopeks each; and these are a
little more expensive. There is rather a pretty
one, of quite a new style; one rouble and twenty
kopeks."
"All right, I will have this. But could not
you make it cheaper? Let us say one rouble."
The Forged Coupon |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Herbert West: Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft: attendants. He was a menacing military figure who talked without
moving his lips and whose voice seemed almost ventriloquially
connected with an immense black case he carried. His expressionless
face was handsome to the point of radiant beauty, but had shocked
the superintendent when the hall light fell on it -- for it was
a wax face with eyes of painted glass. Some nameless accident
had befallen this man. A larger man guided his steps; a repellent
hulk whose bluish face seemed half eaten away by some unknown
malady. The speaker had asked for the custody of the cannibal
monster committed from Arkham sixteen years before; and upon being
refused, gave a signal which precipitated a shocking riot. The
Herbert West: Reanimator |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: youth and wither in age, without the knowledge of any other than
domestic evils, and share the same pleasures and vexations, whether
their kings are mild or cruel, whether the armies of their country
pursue their enemies or retreat before them. While Courts are
disturbed with intestine competitions and ambassadors are
negotiating in foreign countries, the smith still plies his anvil
and the husbandman drives his plough forward; the necessaries of
life are required and obtained, and the successive business of the
season continues to make its wonted revolutions.
"Let us cease to consider what perhaps may never happen, and what,
when it shall happen, will laugh at human speculation. We will not
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