| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: the other side of the river. It was my final opportunity. I made a
desperate grab at it and caught the grasshopper.
My premonition proved to be correct. When that Kri-karee, invisibly
attached to my line, went floating down the stream, the ouananiche
was surprised. It was the fourteenth of September, and he had
supposed the grasshopper season was over. The unexpected temptation
was too strong for him. He rose with a rush, and in an instant I
was fast to the best land-locked salmon of the year.
But the situation was not without its embarrassments. My rod
weighed only four and a quarter ounces; the fish weighed between six
and seven pounds. The water was furious and headstrong. I had only
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: hinges, being forced quite open, a square and sturdy little urchin
became apparent, with cheeks as red as an apple. He was clad
rather shabbily (but, as it seemed, more owing to his mother's
carelessness than his father's poverty), in a blue apron, very
wide and short trousers, shoes somewhat out at the toes, and a
chip hat, with the frizzles of his curly hair sticking through
its crevices. A book and a small slate, under his arm, indicated
that he was on his way to school. He stared at Hepzibah a moment,
as an elder customer than himself would have been likely enough
to do, not knowing what to make of the tragic attitude and queer
scowl wherewith she regarded him.
House of Seven Gables |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: by the Comic poets; and in the New Comedy the allusions to such topics have
disappeared. They seem to have been no longer tolerated by the greater
refinement of the age. False sentiment is found in the Lyric and Elegiac
poets; and in mythology 'the greatest of the Gods' (Rep.) is not exempt
from evil imputations. But the morals of a nation are not to be judged of
wholly by its literature. Hellas was not necessarily more corrupted in the
days of the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, or of Plato and the Orators,
than England in the time of Fielding and Smollett, or France in the
nineteenth century. No one supposes certain French novels to be a
representation of ordinary French life. And the greater part of Greek
literature, beginning with Homer and including the tragedians,
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