| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane: He passed into the side door of a saloon and went to the bar.
Straining up on his toes he raised the pail and pennies as high
as his arms would let him. He saw two hands thrust down and take them.
Directly the same hands let down the filled pail and he left.
In front of the gruesome doorway he met a lurching figure.
It was his father, swaying about on uncertain legs.
"Give me deh can. See?" said the man, threateningly.
"Ah, come off! I got dis can fer dat ol' woman an' it 'ud be
dirt teh swipe it. See?" cried Jimmie.
The father wrenched the pail from the urchin. He grasped it
in both hands and lifted it to his mouth. He glued his lips to the
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: with the early Scandinavian settlers.
In every frontier settlement there are men who have come
there to escape restraint. Cutter was one of the `fast set'
of Black Hawk business men. He was an inveterate gambler,
though a poor loser. When we saw a light burning in his office
late at night, we knew that a game of poker was going on.
Cutter boasted that he never drank anything stronger than sherry,
and he said he got his start in life by saving the money
that other young men spent for cigars. He was full of moral
maxims for boys. When he came to our house on business,
he quoted `Poor Richard's Almanack' to me, and told me
My Antonia |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Emma by Jane Austen: which her happy features announced. It was not thrown away on her,
she bounded higher than ever, flew farther down the middle,
and was in a continual course of smiles.
Mr. Elton had retreated into the card-room, looking (Emma trusted)
very foolish. She did not think he was quite so hardened as his wife,
though growing very like her;--she spoke some of her feelings,
by observing audibly to her partner,
"Knightley has taken pity on poor little Miss Smith!--Very goodnatured,
I declare."
Supper was announced. The move began; and Miss Bates might be
heard from that moment, without interruption, till her being
Emma |
