| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: bodies, her countenance, as she read the missive, would assume an
expression which was known to her friends as " slicking her nose
in the air." I do not think that Molly's reason for refusing to
join could have been a truly good one. I should add that her most
precious possession--a treasure which accompanied her even if she
went away for only one night's absence--was an heirloom, a little
miniature portrait of the old Molly Stark, painted when that
far-off dame must have been scarce more than twenty. And when
each summer the young Molly went to Dunbarton, New Hampshire, to
pay her established family visit to the last survivors of her
connection who bore the name of Stark, no word that she heard in
The Virginian |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: Adeline gave a cry, dropped her candlestick, and fled.
Three days later the Baroness, who had received the last sacraments,
was dying, surrounded by her weeping family.
Just before she died, she took her husband's hand and pressed it,
murmuring in his ear:
"My dear, I had nothing left to give up to you but my life. In a
minute or two you will be free, and can make another Baronne Hulot."
And, rare sight, tears oozed from her dead eyes.
This desperateness of vice had vanquished the patience of the angel,
who, on the brink of eternity, gave utterance to the only reproach she
had ever spoken in her life.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: you had seen, you would have thought his soul had entered on that
path whose steps take hold on hell.
There was no struggle in his face; whatever was the resolve he
had reached in the solitary hours when he had stood so close upon
the borders of death, it was unshaken now; but the heart, crushed
and stifled before, was taking its dire revenge. If ever it had
hungered, through the cold, selfish days, for God's help, or a
woman's love, it hungered now, with a craving like death. If
ever he had thought how bare and vacant the years would be, going
down to the grave with lips that never had known a true wife's
kiss, he remembered it now, when it was too late, with bitterness
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
