| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Copy-Cat & Other Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: "You really must speak to Madame," said Cyril.
"I cannot have such things put into the child's
head."
"Oh, Cyril, how can I?"
"I think it is your duty."
"Cyril, could not -- you?"
Cyril grinned. "Do you think," said he, "that
I am going to that elegant widow schoolma'am and
say, 'Madame, my young daughter has had four
proposals of marriage in one day, and I must beg
you to put a stop to such proceedings'? No, Martha;
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: hints of friends, pointing unmistakably at a supposed understanding
existing between us, only made me more seriously examine the state
of my feelings, and assured me that I was not in love. It is true
that I felt a serene pleasure in her society, and that when away
from her she occupied much of my thoughts. It is true that I often
thought of her as a wife; and in these meditations she appeared as
one eminently calculated to make a happy home. But it is no less
true that during a temporary absence of hers of a few weeks I felt
no sort of uneasiness, no yearning for her presence, no vacancy in
my life. I knew, therefore, that it was not love which I felt.
"So much for my feelings. What of hers? They seemed very like my
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: that had rushed out on the black sky and now hung breathless over
that strange parting, her mother's shrivelled features, and
looked close into the sunken eyes that could see into her own
dark future by the light of a long and a painful experience.
Again she felt herself fascinated, as of old, by her mother's
exalted mood and by the oracular certainty of expression which,
together with her fits of violence, had contributed not a little
to the reputation for witchcraft she enjoyed in the settlement.
"I was a slave, and you shall be a queen," went on Mrs. Almayer,
looking straight before her; "but remember men's strength and
their weakness. Tremble before his anger, so that he may see
Almayer's Folly |
