| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber: a very swashbuckler of a shears.
"There!" exclaimed Emma at last, and dropped the shears on the
table with a clatter. "Put that together and see whether it makes
a skirt or not. Now, ladies!"
The three drew a long breath. It was the sort of sound that
comes up from the crowd when a sky-rocket has gone off
successfully, with a final shower of stars.
"Do you do that often?" ventured Mrs. Orton-Wells.
"Often enough to keep my hand in," replied Emma, and led the
way to her office.
The three followed in silence. They were strangely silent, too,
Emma McChesney & Co. |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Emma by Jane Austen: for though he began with grave looks and short questions, he was soon
led on to talk of them all in the usual way, and to take the child
out of her arms with all the unceremoniousness of perfect amity.
Emma felt they were friends again; and the conviction giving
her at first great satisfaction, and then a little sauciness,
she could not help saying, as he was admiring the baby,
"What a comfort it is, that we think alike about our nephews and nieces.
As to men and women, our opinions are sometimes very different;
but with regard to these children, I observe we never disagree."
"If you were as much guided by nature in your estimate of men
and women, and as little under the power of fancy and whim in your
Emma |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: it be otherwise," thought he, straining his eyes through the dim
moonlight. "Methinks it is like the wailing of a child; some
infant, it may be, which has strayed from its mother, and chanced
upon this place of death. For the ease of mine own conscience I
must search this matter out."
He therefore left the path, and walked somewhat fearfully across
the field. Though now so desolate, its soil was pressed down and
trampled by the thousand footsteps of those who had witnessed the
spectacle of that day, all of whom had now retired, leaving the
dead to their loneliness. The traveller, at length reached the
fir-tree, which from the middle upward was covered with living
Twice Told Tales |
