The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: the grass and snow, but the wind whisked them roughly away.
Mrs. Shimerda opened the door before we knocked and seized
grandmother's hand. She did not say `How do!' as usual,
but at once began to cry, talking very fast in her own language,
pointing to her feet which were tied up in rags, and looking
about accusingly at everyone.
The old man was sitting on a stump behind the stove,
crouching over as if he were trying to hide from us.
Yulka was on the floor at his feet, her kitten in her lap.
She peeped out at me and smiled, but, glancing up at her mother,
hid again. Antonia was washing pans and dishes in a dark corner.
My Antonia |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The White Moll by Frank L. Packard: he said, and started on the run down the street.
Gypsy Nan had lost consciousness. Rhoda Gray settled herself on
the doorstep, supporting the woman's head in her lap. Her face had
set again in grim, hard, perplexed lines. There seemed something
unnatural, something menacingly weird, something even uncanny about
it all. Perhaps it was because it seemed as though she could so
surely foresee the end. Gypsy Nan would not live through the night.
Something told her that. The woman's masquerade, for whatever
purpose it had been assumed, was over. "You'll play the game,
won't you? You'll see me through?" There seemed something
pitifully futile in those words now!
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Market-Place by Harold Frederic: I think, sometimes--but it all depends upon what you
call pretty. She's not tall, you know. She takes after
her father's family. The Dabneys are all little people."
Thorpe seemed not to care about the Dabneys. "And what's
Alfred like?" he asked.
"He wants to be an artist!" There was a perceptible note
of apprehension in the mother's confession.
"Well--why shouldn't he--if he's got a bent that way?"
demanded Thorpe, with reproof in his tone. "Did you want
him to be a shop-keeper?"
"I should like to see him a doctor," she replied with dignity.
The Market-Place |