| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: to be angry with me in earnest. I'm on'y a chara'ter in a sea
story. I don't really exist."
"Well, I don't really exist either," says the Captain, "which seems
to meet that."
"I wouldn't set no limits to what a virtuous chara'ter might
consider argument," responded Silver. "But I'm the villain of this
tale, I am; and speaking as one sea-faring man to another, what I
want to know is, what's the odds?"
"Were you never taught your catechism?" said the Captain. "Don't
you know there's such a thing as an Author?"
"Such a thing as a Author?" returned John, derisively. "And who
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James: persuasive volubility. "You could see them--you could use them."
She stopped, seeing that I perceived the sense of that conditional--
stopped long enough for me to give some sign which I did not give.
She must have been conscious, however, that though my face showed
the greatest embarrassment that was ever painted on a human countenance
it was not set as a stone, it was also full of compassion.
It was a comfort to me a long time afterward to consider that she
could not have seen in me the smallest symptom of disrespect.
"I don't know what to do; I'm too tormented, I'm too ashamed!"
she continued with vehemence. Then turning away from me and burying
her face in her hands she burst into a flood of tears. If she did
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey: it sound sordid? But things are not always what they sound--or seem. Glenn
is absorbed in his work. I hated it--I expected to ridicule it. But I ended
by infinitely respecting him. I learned through his hog-raising the real
nobility of work. . . . Well, at last I found courage to ask him when he
was coming back to New York. He said 'never!' . . . I realized then my
blindness, my selfishness. I could not be his wife and live there. I could
not. I was too small, too miserable, too comfort-loving--too spoiled. And
all the time he knew this--knew I'd never be big enough to marry him. . . .
That broke my heart. I left him free--and here I am. . . . I beg you--don't
ask me any more--and never to mention it to me--so I can forget."
The tender unspoken sympathy of women who loved her proved comforting in
The Call of the Canyon |
