| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Daisy Miller by Henry James: "Mademoiselle has made arrangements?" he added in a tone which struck
Winterbourne as very impertinent.
Eugenio's tone apparently threw, even to Miss Miller's own apprehension,
a slightly ironical light upon the young girl's situation.
She turned to Winterbourne, blushing a little--a very little.
"You won't back out?" she said.
"I shall not be happy till we go!" he protested.
"And you are staying in this hotel?" she went on.
"And you are really an American?"
The courier stood looking at Winterbourne offensively. The young man,
at least, thought his manner of looking an offense to Miss Miller;
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: night was bitter cold, and the gas-lamps round the square flared
and flickered in the keen wind; but his hands were hot with fever,
and his forehead burned like fire. On and on he went, almost with
the gait of a drunken man. A policeman looked curiously at him as
he passed, and a beggar, who slouched from an archway to ask for
alms, grew frightened, seeing misery greater than his own. Once he
stopped under a lamp, and looked at his hands. He thought he could
detect the stain of blood already upon them, and a faint cry broke
from his trembling lips.
Murder! that is what the cheiromantist had seen there. Murder!
The very night seemed to know it, and the desolate wind to howl it
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: a song greeted her ears from the front of the settle, in a
melody and accent of peculiar charm. There had been some
singing before she came down; and now the Scotchman had made
himself so soon at home that, at the request of some of the
master-tradesmen, he, too, was favouring the room with a
ditty.
Elizabeth-Jane was fond of music; she could not help pausing
to listen; and the longer she listened the more she was
enraptured. She had never heard any singing like this and
it was evident that the majority of the audience had not
heard such frequently, for they were attentive to a much
The Mayor of Casterbridge |
