| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: talk, compounded of so much sterling sense and so much freakish
humour, and clothed in language so apt, droll, and emphatic, was a
perpetual delight to all who knew him before the clouds began to
settle on his mind. His use of language was both just and
picturesque; and when at the beginning of his illness he began to
feel the ebbing of this power, it was strange and painful to hear
him reject one word after another as inadequate, and at length
desist from the search and leave his phrase unfinished rather than
finish it without propriety. It was perhaps another Celtic trait
that his affections and emotions, passionate as these were, and
liable to passionate ups and downs, found the most eloquent
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Desert Gold by Zane Grey: somewhere. Now, Nell is kiddish an' sweet an'--"
"Chop it," interrupted Belding. "Here comes Nell now."
Dick's tingling hears took in the pattering of light footsteps,
the rush of some one running.
"Here you are," cried a sweet, happy voice. "Dad, the Senorita
is perfectly lovely. I've been peeping at her. She sleeps like--like
death. She's so white. Oh, I hope she won't be ill."
"Shore she's only played out," said Laddy. " But she had spunk
while it lasted....I was just arguin' with Jim an' Tom about Miss
Castaneda."
"Gracious! Why, she's beautiful. I never saw any one so
Desert Gold |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: thoughts were all in keeping with the details of this strange
landscape, and the harmonies of her heart blended with the harmonies
of nature. When the sun reached an angle of the wall where the "Venus-
hair" of southern climes drooped its thick leaves, lit with the
changing colors of a pigeon's breast, celestial rays of hope illumined
the future to her eyes, and thenceforth she loved to gaze upon that
piece of wall, on its pale flowers, its blue harebells, its wilting
herbage, with which she mingled memories as tender as those of
childhood. The noise made by each leaf as it fell from its twig in the
void of that echoing court gave answer to the secret questionings of
the young girl, who could have stayed there the livelong day without
Eugenie Grandet |
