| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: In the first place, about thanking him. If I do that, I encourage him,
and he would certainly take advantage of it to change the character of
our present intercourse. But if I pass him without notice--think of
it! a mother--a mother who owes him the life of her daughter, to
pretend not to see him! to pass him without a single word of
gratitude!
That, however, is the intolerable alternative in which I find myself
placed, and you can now see how much I need the counsels of your
experience. What can I do to break the unpleasant habit this man has
taken of being my shadow? How shall I thank him without encouraging
him? or not thank him without incurring self-reproach?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Legend of Montrose by Walter Scott: done and suffered together--See, he turns back to look at me!--Be
kind to him, my good breechless friend, and I will requite you
well." So saying, and withal sniffling a little to swallow his
grief, he turned from the heart-rending spectacle in order to
follow his guide.
To follow his guide was no easy matter, and soon required more
agility than Captain Dalgetty could master. The very first
plunge after he had parted from his charger, carried him, with
little assistance from a few overhanging boughs, or projecting
roots of trees, eight foot sheer down into the course of a
torrent, up which the Son of the Mist led the way. Huge stones,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: "Allah be praised," I said with all the voice I could muster.
"Behold the coffee-pot!" And then I put down the grip and folded
up like a jack-knife on the porch floor.
When I came around something hot was trickling down my neck, and a
despairing voice was saying, "Oh, I don't seem to be able to pour
it into your mouth. Please open your eyes."
"But I don't want it in my eyes," I replied dreamily. "I haven't
any idea what came over me. It was the shoes, I think: the left
one is a red-hot torture." I was sitting by that time and looking
across into her face.
Never before or since have I fainted, but I would do it joyfully,
The Man in Lower Ten |
