| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Burning Daylight by Jack London: banks on either hand. The trees, burdened with the last
infinitesimal pennyweight of snow their branches could hold,
stood in absolute petrifaction. The slightest tremor would have
dislodged the snow, and no snow was dislodged. The sled was the
one point of life and motion in the midst of the solemn quietude,
and the harsh churn of its runners but emphasized the silence
through which it moved.
It was a dead world, and furthermore, a gray world. The weather
was sharp and clear; there was no moisture in the atmosphere, no
fog nor haze; yet the sky was a gray pall. The reason for this
was that, though there was no cloud in the sky to dim the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy: regard to his great contemporary and to the lit-
erary world of St. Petersburg, shook off the dust
of the capital, and, after resigning his commission
in the army, went abroad on a tour through Ger-
many, Switzerland, and France.
In France his growing aversion from capital
punishment became intensified by his witnessing a
public execution, and the painful thoughts aroused
by the scene of the guillotine haunted his sensitive
spirit for long. He left France for Switzerland,
and there, among beautiful natural surroundings,
The Forged Coupon |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from O Pioneers! by Willa Cather: the Bergson pasture joined the one that had
belonged to his father. There he sat down and
waited for the sun to rise. It was just there
that he and Alexandra used to do their milking
together, he on his side of the fence, she on hers.
He could remember exactly how she looked
when she came over the close-cropped grass,
her skirts pinned up, her head bare, a bright
tin pail in either hand, and the milky light of the
early morning all about her. Even as a boy he
used to feel, when he saw her coming with her
O Pioneers! |
