| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Another Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac: "Yes," said de Marsay, "you have truly hit the fault of our age. The
epigram--a volume in a word--no longer strikes, as it did in the
eighteenth century, at persons or at things, but at squalid events,
and it dies in a day."
"Hence," said Blondet, "the intelligence of the lady, if she has any,
consists in casting doubts on everything. Here lies the great
difference between two women; the townswoman is certainly virtuous;
the lady does not know yet whether she is, or whether she always will
be; she hesitates and struggles where the other refuses point-blank
and falls full length. This hesitancy in everything is one of the last
graces left to her by our horrible times. She rarely goes to church,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather: He followed her through the drawing-room
into the library, where the wide back windows
looked out upon the garden and the sunset
and a fine stretch of silver-colored river.
A harp-shaped elm stood stripped against
the pale-colored evening sky, with ragged
last year's birds' nests in its forks,
and through the bare branches the evening star
quivered in the misty air. The long brown
room breathed the peace of a rich and amply
guarded quiet. Tea was brought in immediately
Alexander's Bridge |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Polly of the Circus by Margaret Mayo: the "big top" exhausted, that she crept to the woman's side as
usual that night, and gazed laughingly into the sightless eyes,
gurgling and prattling and stroking the unresponsive face. There
were tears from those who watched, but no word was spoken.
Clown Toby and the big "boss canvas-man" Jim had always taken
turns amusing and guarding little Polly, while her mother rode in
the ring. So Toby now carried the babe to another side of the
lot, and Jim bore the lifeless body of the mother to the distant
ticket-wagon, now closed for the night, and laid it upon the
seller's cot.
"It's allus like this in the end," he murmured, as he drew a
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