| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: sea, he talked occasionally with his neighbours, and once when
a child fell he picked it up and soothed it. I damned him in my
heart; the book, which I was sure he did not read--the sea, to
which I was ready to take oath he was indifferent--the child,
whom I was certain he would as lieve have tossed overboard
--all seemed to me elements in a theatrical performance; and I
made no doubt he was already nosing after the secrets of his
fellow-passengers. I took no pains to conceal myself, my scorn
for the creature being as strong as my disgust. But he never
looked my way, and it was night before I learned he had
observed me.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: them.
Hotchkiss was still asleep when I got back to the big room. I moved
his boots back from the fire, and trimmed the candle. Then, with
sleep gone from me, I lay back on my divan and reflected on many
things: on my idiocy in coming; on Alison West, and the fact that
only a week before she had been a guest in this very house; on
Richey and the constraint that had come between us. From that I
drifted back to Alison, and to the barrier my comparative poverty
would be.
The emptiness, the stillness were oppressive. Once I heard
footsteps coming, rhythmical steps that neither hurried nor dragged,
The Man in Lower Ten |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: The dealer had styled the Virginian "a black-headed guy." This
did well enough as an unflattered portrait. Judge Henry's
trustworthy man, with whom I was to drive two hundred and
sixty-three miles, certainly had a very black head of hair. It
was the first thing to notice now, if one glanced generally at
the table where he sat at cards. But the eye came back to
him--drawn by that inexpressible something which had led the
dealer to speak so much at length about him.
Still, "black-headed guy" justly fits him and his next
performance. He had made his plan for this like a true and (I
must say) inspired devil. And now the highly appreciative town of
The Virginian |
