| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Under the Andes by Rex Stout: to
talk, we must reach an understanding."
"Well?" said Harry, lighting a cigarette and seating himself
on the arm of a chair.
"You have often thought," I continued, "that I have been
trying to interfere with your freedom. But you are mistaken; I
have merely been trying to preserve it--and I have succeeded."
"When our father and mother died you were fifteen years of
age. You are now twenty-two; and I take some credit for the fact
that those seven years have left no stain, however slight, on the
name of Lamar."
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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: the crackling wood breaking the dead silence of the room.
"It does not matter," he said, raising his head, laying his arm
over his strong chest unconsciously, as if to shut in all
complaint. "I had an idle fancy that it would be good on this
Christmas night to bare the secrets hidden in here to you,--to
suffer your pure eyes to probe the sorest depths: I thought
perhaps they would have a blessing power. It was an idle fancy.
What is my want or crime to you?"
The answer came slowly, but it did come.
"Nothing to me."
She tried to meet the gaunt face looking down on her with its
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: 'I am the one whom life so shrewdly betrayed,
Misfortune dogs me, it always hunted me down.
And to-day the woman I love lies dead.
I gave her roses, a ring with opals;
These hands have touched her head.
'I bound her to me in all soft ways,
I bound her to me in a net of days,
Yet now she has gone in silence and said no word.
How can we face these dazzling things, I ask you?
There is no use: we cry: and are not heard.
'They cover a body with roses . . . I shall not see it . . .
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