| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: smoothly, a film of mother of pearl.
They both smiled, standing there. They both felt a common hilarity,
excited by the moving waves; and then by the swift cutting race of a
sailing boat, which, having sliced a curve in the bay, stopped; shivered;
let its sails drop down; and then, with a natural instinct to complete the
picture, after this swift movement, both of them looked at the dunes
far away, and instead of merriment felt come over them some
sadness--because the thing was completed partly, and partly because
distant views seem to outlast by a million years (Lily thought) the gazer
and to be communing already with a sky which beholds an earth entirely
at rest.
To the Lighthouse |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: strung out and marches 'em, single file, through from the main room;
and the reporter man passes 'em out of the side door into the hall
again. As they go by, Buck takes up the stock and the Gold Bonds,
paying 'em cash, dollar for dollar, the same as they paid in. The
shareholders of the Golconda Gold Bond and Investment Company can't
hardly believe it. They almost grabs the money out of Buck's hands.
Some of the women keep on crying, for it's a custom of the sex to cry
when they have sorrow, to weep when they have joy, and to shed tears
whenever they find themselves without either.
The old women's fingers shake when they stuff the skads in the bosom
of their rusty dresses. The factory girls just stoop over and flap
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: Her fingers wandered to her hair. Her eyes wandered to the June
sunshine outside. The hero was left poised, arms outstretched, and
unquenchable love-light burning in his eyes, while Mary Louise
mused, thus:
"It certainly feels sticky. It's been six weeks, at least.
And I could sit here-by the window--in the sun--and dry it----"
With a jerk she brought her straying fingers away from her
hair, and her wandering eyes away from the sunshine, and her
runaway thoughts back to the typewritten page. For three minutes
the snap of the little disks crackled through the stillness of the
tiny apartment. Then, suddenly, as though succumbing to an
Buttered Side Down |
