| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: a present, just a new cigar-case. I don't know if you'd care to have it--"
She was the lonely girl, the brown appealing Myra Thompson, whom he had
married, and he almost wept for pity as he kissed her and besought, "Oh,
honey, honey, CARE to have it? Of course I do! I'm awful proud you brought it
to me. And I needed a new case badly."
He wondered how he would get rid of the case he had bought the week before.
"And you really are glad to see me back?"
"Why, you poor kiddy, what you been worrying about?"
"Well, you didn't seem to miss me very much."
By the time he had finished his stint of lying they were firmly bound again.
By ten that evening it seemed improbable that she had ever been away. There
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Love Songs by Sara Teasdale: And green Ravello dreaming on her height;
I have remembered music in the dark,
The clean swift brightness of a fugue of Bach's,
And running water singing on the rocks
When once in English woods I heard a lark.
But all remembered beauty is no more
Than a vague prelude to the thought of you --
You are the rarest soul I ever knew,
Lover of beauty, knightliest and best;
My thoughts seek you as waves that seek the shore,
And when I think of you, I am at rest.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen: words that Fanny felt all over her, in all her pulses
and all her nerves. Denial was impossible. Her habits
of ready submission, on the contrary, made her almost
instantly rise and lead the way out of the room.
She did it with wretched feelings, but it was inevitable.
They were no sooner in the hall than all restraint
of countenance was over on Miss Crawford's side.
She immediately shook her head at Fanny with arch,
yet affectionate reproach, and taking her hand,
seemed hardly able to help beginning directly.
She said nothing, however, but, "Sad, sad girl!
Mansfield Park |
