| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: All this time Patsy had stood on the porch where Tom had left him
hanging over the railing wrapped in Jennie's shawl. He was not to
move until she came for him: she wanted him out of the way of
trampling feet. Now and then she would turn anxiously, catch
sight of his wizened face dazed with fright, wave her hand to him
encouragingly, and work on.
Suddenly the little fellow gave a cry of terror and slid from the
porch, trailing the shawl after him, his crutch jerking over the
ground, his sobs almost choking him.
"Mammy! Cully! Stumpy's tied in the loft! Oh, somebody help me!
He's in the loft! Oh, please, please!"
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: could be relieved from duty and flung out in the literary back
yard to rot and disappear along with the discarded and forgotten
"steeds" and "halidomes" and similar stage-properties once so
dear to our grandfathers. But I am friendly to Mr. Howells's
stage directions; more friendly to them than to any one else's, I
think. They are done with a competent and discriminating art,
and are faithful to the requirements of a state direction's
proper and lawful office, which is to inform. Sometimes they
convey a scene and its conditions so well that I believe I could
see the scene and get the spirit and meaning of the accompanying
dialogue if some one would read merely the stage directions to me
What is Man? |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: unawares with infinite patience, and really directing her while he
seemed to be obeying without ever letting her percieve in him the
slightest wish on his part to govern her.
When the Abbe Chapeloud died, the old maid, who desired a lodger with
quiet ways, naturally thought of the vicar. Before the canon's will
was made known she had meditated offering his rooms to the Abbe
Troubert, who was not very comfortable on the ground-floor. But when
the Abbe Birotteau, on receiving his legacy, came to settle in writing
the terms of his board she saw he was so in love with the apartment,
for which he might now admit his long cherished desires, that she
dared not propose the exchange, and accordingly sacrificed her
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