| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Silas Marner by George Eliot: circle and in the direct rays of the fire. The weaver, too feeble
to have any distinct purpose beyond that of getting help to recover
his money, submitted unresistingly. The transient fears of the
company were now forgotten in their strong curiosity, and all faces
were turned towards Silas, when the landlord, having seated himself
again, said--
"Now then, Master Marner, what's this you've got to say--as
you've been robbed? Speak out."
"He'd better not say again as it was me robbed him," cried Jem
Rodney, hastily. "What could I ha' done with his money? I could
as easy steal the parson's surplice, and wear it."
Silas Marner |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: "Methinks he is an awful man indeed," remarked Guasconti,
mentally recalling the cold and purely intellectual aspect of
Rappaccini. "And yet, worshipful professor, is it not a noble
spirit? Are there many men capable of so spiritual a love of
science?"
"God forbid," answered the professor, somewhat testily; "at
least, unless they take sounder views of the healing art than
those adopted by Rappaccini. It is his theory that all medicinal
virtues are comprised within those substances which we term
vegetable poisons. These he cultivates with his own hands, and is
said even to have produced new varieties of poison, more horribly
Mosses From An Old Manse |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: extension of her brilliant talk, later the dreaded vehicle of a
tragic importunity. He knew, of course, that they were wonderful;
that, unlike the authors who give their essence to the public and
keep only a dry rind for their friends, Mrs. Aubyn had stored of
her rarest vintage for this hidden sacrament of tenderness.
Sometimes, indeed, he had been oppressed, humiliated almost, by
the multiplicity of her allusions, the wide scope of her
interests, her persistence in forcing her superabundance of
thought and emotion into the shallow receptacle of his sympathy;
but he had never thought of the letters objectively, as the
production of a distinguished woman; had never measured the
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