| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: account of the smoke. What were they hiding from? he asked. The
runaways that had escaped? A laugh followed this sally, and the
door was left open. Thus I learned that there had been more
thieves than the two that were captured. It gave a little more
ground for their suspicion about me and my anxiety to pass the
night elsewhere. It cost nothing to detain me, and they were
taking no chances, however remote.
The fresh air and the light now filled the stable, and I lay
listening while their breakfast brought more talk from them. They
were more at ease now than was I, who had nothing to do but carry
out my role of slumber in the stall; they spoke in a friendly,
The Virginian |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber: Buck would strike an attitude intended to intimidate.
"If you have no sense of what is due me as your husband, then I
demand, as senior partner of this firm, to know what it is that
is taking your time, which rightfully belongs to this business."
"Go away, T. A., and stop pestering me! What do you think I'm
designing--a doily?"
Buck, turning to go to his own office, threw a last retort over
his shoulder--a rather sobering one, this time.
"Whatever it is, it had better be good--with business what it is
and skirts what they are."
Emma lifted her head to reply to that.
Emma McChesney & Co. |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: red velvet, in which she dressed De Marsay, then adorned his head with
a woman's bonnet and wrapped a shawl round him. Abandoning herself to
these follies with a child's innocence, she laughed a convulsive
laugh, and resembled some bird flapping its wings; but he saw nothing
beyond.
If it be impossible to paint the unheard-of delights which these two
creatures--made by heaven in a joyous moment--found, it is perhaps
necessary to translate metaphysically the extraordinary and almost
fantastic impressions of the young man. That which persons in the
social position of De Marsay, living as he lived, are best able to
recognize is a girl's innocence. But, strange phenomenon! The girl of
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
