| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: she whispered teasingly in my ear. In a moment I watched
her fade down the dusky stairway.
When I turned back to my room the place seemed much pleasanter than before.
Lena had left something warm and friendly in the lamplight.
How I loved to hear her laugh again! It was so soft and unexcited
and appreciative gave a favourable interpretation to everything.
When I closed my eyes I could hear them all laughing--the Danish laundry
girls and the three Bohemian Marys. Lena had brought them all back to me.
It came over me, as it had never done before, the relation between girls
like those and the poetry of Virgil. If there were no girls like them
in the world, there would be no poetry. I understood that clearly,
My Antonia |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: younger and fairer; her eyes shone, her smile went to my
heart; she seemed no more a woman but the angel of ecstatic
tenderness. I ran to her in a kind of terror; but she shrank
a little back and laid her finger on her lips, with something
arch and yet unearthly. To the doctor, on the contrary, she
reached out her hand as to a friend and helper; and so
strange was the scene that I forgot to be offended.
'Lucy,' said the doctor, 'all is prepared. Will you go
alone, or shall your daughter follow us?'
'Let Asenath come,' she answered, 'dear Asenath! At this
hour, when I am purified of fear and sorrow, and already
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: pretensions and to show him, as a haven, the peaceful and consoling
life of home. Evils came from society--why not banish it? In his home
Diard found peace and respect; he reigned there. She felt herself
strong to accept the trying task of making him happy,--he, a man
dissatisfied with himself. Her energy increased with the difficulties
of life; she had all the secret heroism necessary to her position;
religion inspired her with those desires which support the angel
appointed to protect a Christian soul--occult poesy, allegorical image
of our two natures!
Diard abandoned his projects, closed his house to the world, and lived
in his home. But here he found another reef. The poor soldier had one
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