| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: was too gross or monstrous for his capacious swallow. It was
often his delight, after his school was dismissed in the
afternoon, to stretch himself on the rich bed of clover bordering
the little brook that whimpered by his school-house, and there
con over old Mather's direful tales, until the gathering dusk of
evening made the printed page a mere mist before his eyes. Then,
as he wended his way by swamp and stream and awful woodland, to
the farmhouse where he happened to be quartered, every sound of
nature, at that witching hour, fluttered his excited
imagination, --the moan of the whip-poor-will from the hillside,
the boding cry of the tree toad, that harbinger of storm, the
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: Perhaps, even if the listening angel did not grant the prayer, he
marked down the stall at least, as a something done for eternity.
Margret, through the stifling air, worked steadily alone in the
dusty office, her face bent over the books, never changing but
once. It was a trifle then; yet, when she looked back
afterwards, the trifle was all that gave the day a name. The
room shook, as I said, with the thunderous, incessant sound of
the engines and the looms; she scarcely heard it, being used to
it. Once, however, another sound came between,-- an iron tread,
passing through the long wooden corridor,--so firm and measured
that it sounded like the monotonous beatings of a clock. She
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Under the Red Robe by Stanley Weyman: knew that he was no swordsman. Possibly he had taken half-a-
dozen lessons in rapier art, and practised what he learned with
an Englishman as heavy and awkward as himself. But that was all.
He made a few wild clumsy rushes, parrying widely. When I had
foiled these, the danger was over, and I held him at my mercy.
I played with him a little while, watching the sweat gather on
his brow and the shadow of the church tower fall deeper and
darker, like the shadow of doom, on his face. Not out of cruelty
--God knows I have never erred in that direction!--but because,
for the first time in my life, I felt a strange reluctance to
strike the blow. The curls clung to his forehead; his breath
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