| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: some pretext or other which you must invent; I am not very
clever at pretexts. Milady does not know me; I will get
access to her without her suspecting me, and when I catch my
beauty, I will strangle her."
"Well," replied Athos, "I am not far from approving the idea
of Monsieur Porthos."
"For shame!" said Aramis. "Kill a woman? No, listen to me;
I have the true idea."
"Let us see your idea, Aramis," said Athos, who felt much
deference for the young Musketeer."
"We must inform the queen."
 The Three Musketeers |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Tanach: Genesis 43: 21 And it came to pass, when we came to the lodging-place, that we opened our sacks, and, behold, every man's money was in the mouth of his sack, our money in full weight; and we have brought it back in our hand.
Genesis 43: 22 And other money have we brought down in our hand to buy food. We know not who put our money in our sacks.'
Genesis 43: 23 And he said: 'Peace be to you, fear not; your God, and the God of your father, hath given you treasure in your sacks; I had your money.' And he brought Simeon out unto them.
Genesis 43: 24 And the man brought the men into Joseph's house, and gave them water, and they washed their feet; and he gave their asses provender.
Genesis 43: 25 And they made ready the present against Joseph's coming at noon; for they heard that they should eat bread there.
Genesis 43: 26 And when Joseph came home, they brought him the present which was in their hand into the house, and bowed down to him to the earth.
Genesis 43: 27 And he asked them of their welfare, and said: 'Is your father well, the old man of whom ye spoke? Is he yet alive?'
Genesis 43: 28 And they said: 'Thy servant our father is well, he is yet alive.' And they bowed the head, and made obeisance.
Genesis 43: 29 And he lifted up his eyes, and saw Benjamin his brother, his mother's son, and said: 'Is this your youngest brother of whom ye spoke unto me?' And he said: 'God be gracious unto thee, my son.'
 The Tanach |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: I know about this, because it has happened to me so many times.
And I have noticed another thing: that as the short tale
grows into the long tale, the original intention (or motif)
is apt to get abolished and find itself superseded by a quite
different one. It was so in the case of a magazine sketch which
I once started to write--a funny and fantastic sketch about a
prince an a pauper; it presently assumed a grave cast of its own accord,
and in that new shape spread itself out into a book.
Much the same thing happened with PUDD'NHEAD WILSON. I had a
sufficiently hard time with that tale, because it changed itself
from a farce to a tragedy while I was going along with it--a most
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