| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: from her bosom a soiled and crumpled letter.
"Read that," she said, making a violent effort to say the words.
She fell into a chair, seemingly exhausted. While the old man searched
for his spectacles and rubbed their glasses, she raised her eyes to
him, and seemed to study him with curiosity; then she said in an
altered voice, and very softly,--
"I trust you."
"I am here to share your crime," replied the good man, simply.
She quivered. For the first time in that little town, her soul
sympathized with that of another. The old man now understood both the
hopes and the fears of the poor woman. The letter was from her son. He
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Betty Zane by Zane Grey: yell of the Shawnees rang out clear and strong. The soldiers were drawn off to
one side and well out of range of the settlers' guns. Their red coats and
flashing bayonets were new to most of the little band of men in the
block-house.
"Ho, the Fort!"
It was a strong, authoritative voice and came from a man mounted on a black
horse.
"Well, Girty, what is it?" shouted Silas Zane.
"We demand unconditional surrender," was the answer.
"You will never get it," replied Silas.
"Take more time to think it over. You see we have a force here large enough to
Betty Zane |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: moisture and then disappear.
I saw him again at the foot of the pyramids, which lifted
their sharp points into the intense saffron glow of the sunset
sky, changeless monuments of the perishable glory and the
imperishable hope of man. He looked up into the face of the
crouching Sphinx and vainly tried to read the meaning of the
calm eyes and smiling mouth. Was it, indeed, the mockery of
all effort and all aspiration, as Tigranes had said--the cruel
jest of a riddle that has no answer, a search that never can
succeed? Or was there a touch of pity and encouragement in
that inscrutable smile--a promise that even the defeated
|
