| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: Lena took him by the elbow and turned him round.
She laughed when she saw the long gap in the satin.
`You could never pin that, Mr. Ordinsky. You've kept it
folded too long, and the goods is all gone along the crease.
Take it off. I can put a new piece of lining-silk in there
for you in ten minutes.' She disappeared into her work-room
with the vest, leaving me to confront the Pole, who stood
against the door like a wooden figure. He folded his arms
and glared at me with his excitable, slanting brown eyes.
His head was the shape of a chocolate drop, and was covered with dry,
straw-coloured hair that fuzzed up about his pointed crown.
My Antonia |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: kindled the broad foliage, that each chestnut was relieved against
another, not in shadow, but in light. A humble sketcher here laid
down his pencil in despair.
I wish I could convey a notion of the growth of these noble trees;
of how they strike out boughs like the oak, and trail sprays of
drooping foliage like the willow; of how they stand on upright
fluted columns like the pillars of a church; or like the olive,
from the most shattered bole can put out smooth and youthful
shoots, and begin a new life upon the ruins of the old. Thus they
partake of the nature of many different trees; and even their
prickly top-knots, seen near at hand against the sky, have a
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: further but a hackney cab to take me home. The porter's wife will
go for one."
He tried to repeat his thanks to the two strangers; but at each
sentence the elder lady interrupted him, saying, "Tomorrow,
monsieur, pray be careful to put on leeches, or to be bled, and
drink a few cups of something healing. A fall may be dangerous."
The young girl stole a look at the painter and at the pictures in
the studio. Her expression and her glances revealed perfect
propriety; her curiosity seemed rather absence of mind, and her
eyes seemed to speak the interest which women feel, with the most
engaging spontaneity, in everything which causes us suffering.
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