| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: no cause, science itself could find no mark of danger, a son's
solicitude was laid at rest; but the eyes of the body saw the
approach of a blow, and the consciousness of the body trembled at
its coming. It came in a moment; the brilliant, spirited old lady
leapt from her bed, raving. For about six months, this stage of
her disease continued with many painful and many pathetic
circumstances; her husband who tended her, her son who was
unwearied in his visits, looked for no change in her condition but
the change that comes to all. 'Poor mother,' I find Fleeming
writing, 'I cannot get the tones of her voice out of my head. . . I
may have to bear this pain for a long time; and so I am bearing it
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: Osric Dane helped herself critically to coffee. "How do you
define objective?" she then inquired.
There was a flurried pause before Laura Glyde intensely murmured:
"In reading YOU we don't define, we feel."
Osric Dane smiled. "The cerebellum," she remarked, "is not
infrequently the seat of the literary emotions." And she took a
second lump of sugar.
The sting that this remark was vaguely felt to conceal was almost
neutralised by the satisfaction of being addressed in such
technical language.
"Ah, the cerebellum," said Miss Van Vluyck complacently. "The
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: "Souls have complexions too: what will suit one will not suit another."
"But you might like to keep it for mamma's sake."
"No, I have other things of mamma's--her sandal-wood box which I am
so fond of--plenty of things. In fact, they are all yours, dear.
We need discuss them no longer. There--take away your property."
Celia felt a little hurt. There was a strong assumption of superiority
in this Puritanic toleration, hardly less trying to the blond
flesh of an unenthusiastic sister than a Puritanic persecution.
"But how can I wear ornaments if you, who are the elder sister,
will never wear them?"
"Nay, Celia, that is too much to ask, that I should wear trinkets
Middlemarch |
