| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: to demand as its right all the happiness of love. Here was a fair
young face, on which the sun of Spain had cast faint tones of bistre
which added to its expression of seraphic calmness a passionate pride,
like a flash of light infused beneath that diaphanous complexion,--
due, perhaps, to the Moorish blood which vivified and colored it. Her
hair, raised to the top of her head, fell thence with black
reflections round the delicate transparent ears and defined the
outlines of a blue-veined throat. These luxuriant locks brought into
strong relief the dazzling eyes and the scarlet lips of a well-arched
mouth. The bodice of the country set off the lines of a figure that
swayed as easily as a branch of willow. She was not the Virgin of
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry: and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they
are wisest. They are the magi.
End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of THE GIFT OF THE MAGI.
 The Gift of the Magi |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Blix by Frank Norris: most charming pink upon her smooth, cool cheeks. Her lips were
full and red, her chin very round and a little salient. Curiously
enough, her eyes were small--small, but of the deepest, deepest
brown, and always twinkling and alight, as though she were just
ready to smile or had just done smiling, one could not say which.
And nothing could have been more delightful than these sloe-brown,
glinting little eyes of hers set off by her white skin and yellow
hair.
She impressed one as being a very normal girl: nothing morbid
about her, nothing nervous or false or overwrought. You did not
|