| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: arrangements for the temporary entombment. The body having been
encoffined, we two alone bore it to its rest. The vault in which
we placed it (and which had been so long unopened that our
torches, half smothered in its oppressive atmosphere, gave us
little opportunity for investigation) was small, damp, and
entirely without means of admission for light; lying, at great
depth, immediately beneath that portion of the building in which
was my own sleeping apartment. It had been used, apparently, in
remote feudal times, for the worst purposes of a donjon-keep, and,
in later days, as a place of deposit for powder, or some other
highly combustible substance, as a portion of its floor,
The Fall of the House of Usher |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Peter Pan by James M. Barrie: Mrs. Darling quivered and went to the window. It was securely
fastened. She looked out, and the night was peppered with stars.
They were crowding round the house, as if curious to see what was
to take place there, but she did not notice this, nor that one or
two of the smaller ones winked at her. Yet a nameless fear
clutched at her heart and made her cry, "Oh, how I wish that I
wasn't going to a party to-night!"
Even Michael, already half asleep, knew that she was perturbed,
and he asked, "Can anything harm us, mother, after the night-
lights are lit?"
"Nothing, precious," she said; "they are the eyes a mother
Peter Pan |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: overhung her childhood and she had none of the pretty delusions
about life that are supposed to be the crowning grace of girlhood.
This very competence, which gave her a touching reasonableness,
made Glennard's situation more difficult than if he had aspired to
a princess bred in the purple. Between them they asked so little--
they knew so well how to make that little do--but they understood
also, and she especially did not for a moment let him forget, that
without that little the future they dreamed of was impossible.
The sight of her photograph quickened Glennard's exasperation. He
was sick and ashamed of the part he was playing. He had loved her
now for two years, with the tranquil tenderness that gathers depth
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