| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber: even when they was pullin' off the trottin' races and the
balloon ascension. It's funny--ain't it?--how them garmints
that you wouldn't turn for a second look at on the
clothesline or in a store winda' becomes kind of wicked and
interestin' the minute they get what they call the human
note. There it lays, that virgin lawnjerie, for all the
county to look at, with pink ribbons run through everything,
and the poor Krieger girl never dreamin' she's doin'
somethin' indelicate. She says yesterday if she wins the
prize she's going to put it toward one of these kitchen
cabinets."
Fanny Herself |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: person would have feared ridicule, but Castanier knew by experience
that a desperate man takes everything seriously. A prisoner lying
under sentence of death would listen to the madman who should tell him
that by pronouncing some gibberish he could escape through the
keyhole; for suffering is credulous, and clings to an idea until it
fails, as the swimmer borne along by the current clings to the branch
that snaps in his hand.
Towards four o'clock that afternoon Castanier appeared among the
little knots of men who were transacting private business after
'Change. He was personally known to some of the brokers; and while
affecting to be in search of an acquaintance, he managed to pick up
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Whirligigs by O. Henry: on the alert -- the fractious yelping of the coyotes, the
ceaseless, low symphony of the wind, the distant booming
of the frogs about the lake, the lamentation of a concertina
in the Mexicans' quarters. There were many conflicting
feelings in her heart -- thankfulness and rebellion, peace
and disquietude, loneliness and a sense of protecting care,
happiness and an old, haunting pain.
She did what any other woman would have done --
sought relief in a wholesome tide of unreasonable tears,
and her last words, murmured to herself before slumber,
capitulating, came softly to woo her, were "He has
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