| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: As they had first landed, they had suffered the first transports of
the bassa's passion, who was a violent, tyrannical man, and would
have killed his own brother for the least advantage--a temper which
made him fly into the utmost rage at seeing us poor, tattered, and
almost naked; he treated us with the most opprobrious language, and
threatened to cut off our heads. We comforted ourselves in this
condition, hoping that all our sufferings would end in shedding our
blood for the name of Jesus Christ. We knew that the bassa had
often made a public declaration before our arrival that he should
die contented if he could have the pleasure of killing us all with
his own hand. This violent resolution was not lasting; his zeal
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: recognize the position of their apartments; they must, he believed,
occupy the whole second floor. Like all the houses of that period,
this floor was next below the roof, from which its windows projected,
adorned with spandrel tops that were richly sculptured. The roof
itself was edged with a sort of balustrade, concealing the gutters for
the rain water which gargoyles in the form of crocodile's heads
discharged into the street. The young seigneur, after studying this
topography as carefully as a cat, believed he could make his way from
the tower to the roof, and thence to Madame de Vallier's by the
gutters and the help of a gargoyle. But he did not count on the
narrowness of the loopholes of the tower; it was impossible to pass
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: on the west hill, beside the half-buried cornfield, where the sky was
taking on a coppery flush from the sun that did not quite break through.
I put on my cap and ran out to meet Jake. When I got to the pond,
I could see that he was bringing in a little cedar tree across his pommel.
He used to help my father cut Christmas trees for me in Virginia,
and he had not forgotten how much I liked them.
By the time we had placed the cold, fresh-smelling little tree
in a corner of the sitting-room, it was already Christmas Eve.
After supper we all gathered there, and even grandfather, reading his
paper by the table, looked up with friendly interest now and then.
The cedar was about five feet high and very shapely.
My Antonia |
