| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Red Seal by Natalie Sumner Lincoln: making a raid on the candy which Barbara had carelessly left lying
loose on one of the tables, paused as a faint creaking sound broke
the stillness, then as the noise increased, the mouse scurried back
to its hole. The noise resembled the turning of rusty hinges and
the soft thud of one piece of wood striking another. There was a
strained silence, then, from out of the darkness appeared a tiny
stream of light directed full on a white envelope bearing a large
red seal.
The next instant the envelope was plucked from the hand holding it,
and a figure lay crumpled on the floor from the blow of a descending
weapon.
The Red Seal |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: room remained as it had been left from the time of Louis XV., in white
and tarnished gold, lavishly adorned by the architect with checkered
lattice-work and the hideous garlands due to the uninventive designers
of the time. Still, if harmony at least had prevailed, if the
furniture of modern mahogany had but assumed the twisted forms of
which Boucher's corrupt taste first set the fashion, Angelique's room
would only have suggested the fantastic contrast of a young couple in
the nineteenth century living as though they were in the eighteenth;
but a number of details were in ridiculous discord. The consoles, the
clocks, the candelabra, were decorated with the military trophies
which the wars of the Empire commended to the affections of the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Heritage of the Desert by Zane Grey: wonderful things have come to me. The friendship of the good man who
saved me, this wild, free desert, the glory of new hope, strength, life--
and love."
He took her hand in his and whispered, "For I love you. Do you care for
me? Mescal! It must be complete. Do you care--a little?"
The wind blew her dusky hair; he could not see her face; he tried gently
to turn her to him. The hand he had taken lay warm and trembling in his,
but it was not withdrawn. As he waited, in fear, in hope, it became
still. Her slender form, rigid within his arm, gradually relaxed, and
yielded to him; her face sank on his breast, and her dark hair loosened
from its band, covered her, and blew across his lips. That was his
The Heritage of the Desert |
