| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: amused light in his cool gray eye, surveying critically the
half-clothed figures of the puddlers, and the slow swing of
their brawny muscles. He was a stranger in the city,--spending
a couple of months in the borders of a Slave State, to study the
institutions of the South,--a brother-in-law of Kirby's,--
Mitchell. He was an amateur gymnast,--hence his anatomical eye;
a patron, in a blase' way, of the prize-ring; a man who sucked
the essence out of a science or philosophy in an indifferent,
gentlemanly way; who took Kant, Novalis, Humboldt, for what they
were worth in his own scales; accepting all, despising nothing,
in heaven, earth, or hell, but one-idead men; with a temper
Life in the Iron-Mills |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lin McLean by Owen Wister: that he knew. The injuries to his body made impossible any taking him
home, which his sister at first wished to do. "Why, I came here to bring
him home," she said, with a smile and tone like cheerfulness in wax. Her
calm, the unearthly ease with which she spoke to any comer (and she was
surrounded with rough kindness), embarrassed the listeners; she saw her
calamity clear as they did, but was sleep-walking in it. It was Lin gave
her what she needed--the repose of his strong, silent presence. He spoke
no sympathy and no advice, nor even did he argue with her about the
burial; he perceived somehow that she did not really hear what was said
to her, and that these first griefless, sensible words came from some
mechanism of the nerves; so he kept himself near her, and let her tell
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Mother by Owen Wister: "Ethel! Then what is the matter?"
"I told him something. I told him that if it was going to be any story
about--about something I shouldn't like, I should simply follow it with a
story about him that he wouldn't like."
"Ethel! You darling!"
"Oh, yes, and I said I was sure you would all listen, even though I was
not an author myself. And I have it ready, you know, and it's awfully
like Richard, only a different side of him from the burglar one."
"But, my dear, what did he do when you--"
This enquiry was, however, cut short by the entrance of the men. And from
the glance that came from Richard's eyes as they immediately sought out
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