| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: susceptible; it had raised him from the level of an unlettered
laborer to stand on a star-lit eminence, whither the philosophers
of the earth, laden with the lore of universities, might vainly
strive to clamber after him. So much for the intellect! But where
was the heart? That, indeed, had withered,--had contracted,--had
hardened,--had perished! It had ceased to partake of the
universal throb. He had lost his hold of the magnetic chain of
humanity. He was no longer a brother-man, opening the chambers or
the dungeons of our common nature by the key of holy sympathy,
which gave him a right to share in all its secrets; he was now a
cold observer, looking on mankind as the subject of his
The Snow Image |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Octopus by Frank Norris: meaning. She rose to her feet, her eyes wide, her face paling
with terror. He did not look at her, but he could hear the catch
in her throat.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, with a long, deep breath, and again "Oh!"
the back of her hand against her lips.
It was a quick gasp of a veritable physical anguish. Her eyes
brimmed over. Annixter rose, looking at her.
"Well?" he said, awkwardly, "Well?"
Hilma leaped back from him with an instinctive recoil of her
whole being, throwing out her hands in a gesture of defence,
fearing she knew not what. There was as yet no sense of insult
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Merry Men by Robert Louis Stevenson: good - and Gretz was taken, sacked, and burned. It is the history
of many towns; but Gretz never rose again; it was never rebuilt;
its ruins were a quarry to serve the growth of rivals; and the
stones of Gretz are now erect along the streets of Nemours. It
gratifies me that our old house was the first to rise after the
calamity; when the town had come to an end, it inaugurated the
hamlet.'
'I, too, am glad of that,' said Jean-Marie.
'It should be the temple of the humbler virtues,' responded the
Doctor with a savoury gusto. 'Perhaps one of the reasons why I
love my little hamlet as I do, is that we have a similar history,
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