[short]
Hello world, this is Pocket TTS.
Soft lanterns flickered near the rails.
Rain traced silver lines across the window.

[medium]
Lantern vendors folded their maps beside the station while rain tapped softly on the glass roof above the crowd.
Morning barges drifted past the bridge as the clerk reread the notice and tucked the blue envelope in her coat.

[long]
The museum guide paused at the bronze clock so the children could hear its careful chime echo through the hall, while the last visitors moved slowly past the painted ceiling and toward the river doors.

[long_then_shorts]
A week ago a friend invited a couple of other couples over for dinner. Eventually, the food, but not the wine, was cleared off the table for what turned out to be some fierce Scrabbling. Heeding the strategy of going for the shorter, more valuable word over the longer cheaper word, our final play was Bon, which, as luck would have it, happens to be a Japanese Buddhist festival, and not, as I had originally asserted while laying the tiles on the board, one half of a chocolate-covered cherry treat. Anyway, the strategy worked. My team only lost by 53 points instead of 58. Just the day before, our host had written of the challenges of writing short. In journalism, my friend's chosen trade, and mostly my own too, Mark Twain's observation undoubtedly applies: I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead. The principle holds across genres, in letters, reporting, and other writing. It is harder to be concise than to blather. Good writing is boiled down, not baked full of air like a souffle. No matter how yummy souffles may be.
Silver carts wait by the pier.
Quiet wagons gather by the station.
Morning barges drifted past the bridge as the clerk reread the notice and tucked the blue envelope in her coat.
Rain taps softly on the glass roof.
Small lamps glow along the arcade.