| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Youth by Joseph Conrad: and leaped with a hollow thud into the empty hulk.
We tried to count them, but soon lost the tale. Mahon
said: 'Well, well! don't talk to me about the intelligence
of rats. They ought to have left before, when we had
that narrow squeak from foundering. There you have
the proof how silly is the superstition about them. They
leave a good ship for an old rotten hulk, where there is
nothing to eat, too, the fools! . . . I don't believe they
know what is safe or what is good for them, any more
than you or I.'
"And after some more talk we agreed that the wisdom
Youth |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Wrong Box by Stevenson & Osbourne: (what does not always follow) the total small; but, after the
most sedulous review of all his pockets, one and nine pence
halfpenny appeared to be the total of the old gentleman's
available assets. He asked to see Mr Watts.
'Here is a bill on London for eight hundred pounds,' said Mr
Finsbury, as that worthy appeared. 'I am afraid, unless you
choose to discount it yourself, it may detain me a day or two
till I can get it cashed.'
Mr Watts looked at the bill, turned it over, and dogs-eared it
with his fingers. 'It will keep you a day or two?' he said,
repeating the old man's words. 'You have no other money with
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: The lawyer looked at the Colonel of Cuirassiers with an expression as
much of contempt as of curiosity.
"Well," proceeded Montcornet, "she arrived, I have no doubt,
punctually at nine, the first of the company perhaps, and probably she
greatly embarrassed the Comtesse de Gondreville, who cannot put two
ideas together. Repulsed by the mistress of the house, routed from
chair to chair by each newcomer, and driven into the darkness of this
little corner, she allowed herself to be walled in, the victim of the
jealousy of the other ladies, who would gladly have buried that
dangerous beauty. She had, of course, no friend to encourage her to
maintain the place she first held in the front rank; then each of
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