| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: then was kept an instant longer by the sound of a voice he knew.
Next him was a mumbling old woman, and beyond the old woman a
gentleman with a lady on his arm. It was from him, from Paul
Creston, the voice had proceeded: he was talking with the lady of
some precious object in the window. Stransom had no sooner
recognised him than the old woman turned away; but just with this
growth of opportunity came a felt strangeness that stayed him in
the very act of laying his hand on his friend's arm. It lasted but
the instant, only that space sufficed for the flash of a wild
question. Was NOT Mrs. Creston dead? - the ambiguity met him there
in the short drop of her husband's voice, the drop conjugal, if it
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: pitches rotten ball you'll always hear him howling about the
support he didn't get. Schlachweiler was a bum pitcher. Anybody
could hit him with a willow wand, on a windy day, with the sun in
his eyes."
V
THE KITCHEN SIDE OF THE DOOR
The City was celebrating New Year's Eve.
Spelled thus, with a capital C, know it can mean but New York.
In the Pink Fountain room of the Newest Hotel all those grand old
forms and customs handed down to us for the occasion were being
rigidly observed in all their original quaintness. The Van Dyked
Buttered Side Down |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: Well, April passed with many other evenings,
Evenings like this, with later suns and warmer,
With violets always there, and fragrant curtains . . .
And she was right: and Miriam found it out . . .
And after that, when eight deep years had passed--
Or nine--we met once more,--by accident . . .
But was it just by accident, I wonder,
She played this tune?--Or what, then, was intended? . . .
V. MELODY IN A RESTAURANT
The cigarette-smoke loops and slides above us,
Dipping and swirling as the waiter passes;
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