| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: own life that can never be forgotten. Tact is after all a kind of
mindreading, and my hostess held the golden gift. Sympathy is of
the mind as well as the heart, and Mrs. Blackett's world and mine
were one from the moment we met. Besides, she had that final, that
highest gift of heaven, a perfect self-forgetfulness. Sometimes,
as I watched her eager, sweet old face, I wondered why she had been
set to shine on this lonely island of the northern coast. It must
have been to keep the balance true, and make up to all her
scattered and depending neighbors for other things which they may
have lacked.
When we had finished clearing away the old blue plates, and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: only suitable figure. A heavy shower, a down-
pour, comes along, making a noise. You hear its
approach on the sea, in the air, too, I verily believe.
But this was different. With no preliminary
whisper or rustle, without a splash, and even with-
out the ghost of impact, I became instantaneously
soaked to the skin. Not a very difficult matter,
since I was wearing only my sleeping suit. My
hair got full of water in an instant, water streamed
on my skin, it filled my nose, my ears, my eyes.
In a fraction of a second I swallowed quite a lot
The Shadow Line |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: an additional interest.
The prejudices of the people against Episcopacy were 'out of
measure increased,' says Bishop Burnet, 'by the new
incumbents who were put in the places of the ejected
preachers, and were generally very mean and despicable in all
respects. They were the worst preachers I ever heard; they
were ignorant to a reproach; and many of them were openly
vicious. They . . . were indeed the dreg and refuse of the
northern parts. Those of them who arose above contempt or
scandal were men of such violent tempers that they were as
much hated as the others were despised.' (2) It was little
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