| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: visitors, Captain Somebody and Lieutenant Somebody-else (a couple
of military fops), and the Misses Murray, who, of course, contrived
to join them. Such a party was highly agreeable to Rosalie; but
not finding it equally suitable to my taste, I presently fell back,
and began to botanise and entomologise along the green banks and
budding hedges, till the company was considerably in advance of me,
and I could hear the sweet song of the happy lark; then my spirit
of misanthropy began to melt away beneath the soft, pure air and
genial sunshine; but sad thoughts of early childhood, and yearnings
for departed joys, or for a brighter future lot, arose instead. As
my eyes wandered over the steep banks covered with young grass and
Agnes Grey |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Heart of the West by O. Henry: He sat, somewhat weakly yet, leaning against the wall. He was a rugged
man, big-boned and straight. His eyes, steady and keen, seemed to
linger upon the face of the man standing so still above him. His look
wandered often from the face he studied to the marshal's badge upon
the other's breast.
"Yes, yes, you'll be all right," said the old woman, patting his arm,
"if you don't get to cuttin' up agin, and havin' folks shooting at
you. Son told me about you, sir, while you was layin' senseless on the
floor. Don't you take it as meddlesome fer an old woman with a son as
big as you to talk about it. And you mustn't hold no grudge ag'in' my
son for havin' to shoot at ye. A officer has got to take up for the
Heart of the West |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: they indicate the guillotine, much as your friend aforesaid will
furnish you with the address of the money-lender, pointing you to one
of the hundred gates by which a man comes to the last refuge of the
destitute.
Yet nature has her freaks in the making of a man's mind; she indulges
herself and makes a few honest folk now and again, and now and then a
cashier.
Wherefore, that race of corsairs whom we dignify with the title of
bankers, the gentry who take out a license for which they pay a
thousand crowns, as the privateer takes out his letters of marque,
hold these rare products of the incubations of virtue in such esteem
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