| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: was delicate torment. I seem to remember gilded chairs
and tables (arranged hurriedly by footmen in white gloves
and stockings), linen of dazzling whiteness, glittering glass,
silver dishes, a great bowl of fruit, and the reddest of roses.
The room was invaded by beautiful women and dashing young men,
laughing and talking together. The men were dressed more or less
after the period in which the play was written; the women were not.
I saw no inconsistency. Their talk seemed to open to one
the brilliant world in which they lived; every sentence made
one older and wiser, every pleasantry enlarged one's horizon.
One could experience excess and satiety without the inconvenience
My Antonia |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Message by Honore de Balzac: throat, had overheard or guessed the question and its answer. She
gave me a glance and vanished, calling in shrill, childish tones:
"Mother, here is a gentleman who wishes to speak to you!"
And, along the winding alleys, I followed the skipping and
dancing white frill, a sort of will-o'-the-wisp, that showed me
the way among the trees.
I must make a full confession. I stopped behind the last shrub in
the avenue, pulled up my collar, rubbed my shabby hat and my
trousers with the cuffs of my sleeves, dusted my coat with the
sleeves themselves, and gave them a final cleansing rub one
against the other. I buttoned my coat carefully so as to exhibit
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: wiser or more timid begin to fall a little back from these
extremities; they begin to aspire after a more naked,
narrative articulation; after the succinct, the dignified,
and the poetic; and as a means to this, after a general
lightening of this baggage of detail. After Scott we beheld
the starveling story - once, in the hands of Voltaire, as
abstract as a parable - begin to be pampered upon facts.
The introduction of these details developed a particular
ability of hand; and that ability, childishly indulged, has
led to the works that now amaze us on a railway journey. A
man of the unquestionable force of M. Zola spends himself on
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