| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: make you happy." He stopped, but she did not answer. His voice
had grown softer than whispering, but yet was not a whisper. From
its quiet syllables she turned away, blinded with sudden tears.
"Once, I thought love must surely be enough," he continued. "And
I thought if I could make you love me, you could learn me to be
less--less-more your kind. And I think I could give you a pretty
good sort of love. But that don't help the little mean pesky
things of day by day that make roughness or smoothness for folks
tied together so awful close. Mrs. Taylor hyeh--she don't know
anything better than Taylor does. She don't want anything he
can't give her. Her friends will do for him and his for her. And
The Virginian |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: currant-bushes still. Very little time ago; but she was a woman
now,--and, look here! A chance ray of sunlight slanted in,
falling barely on the dust, the hot heaps of wool, waking a
stronger smell of copperas; the chicken saw it, and began to
chirp a weak, dismal joy, more sorrowful than tears. She went to
the cage, and put her finger in for it to peck at. Standing
there, if the vacant life coming rose up before her in that hard
blare of sunlight, she looked at it with the same still, waiting
eyes, that told nothing.
The door opened at last, and a man came in,--Dr. Knowles, the
principal owner of the factory. He nodded shortly to her, and,
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: convince any reasonable man, that they do not so much as
understand common grammar and syntax; that they are not able to
spell any word out of the usual road, nor even in their prefaces
write common sense or intelligible English. Then for their
observations and predictions, they are such as will equally suit
any age or country in the world. "This month a certain great
person will be threatened with death or sickness." This the
news-papers will tell them; for there we find at the end of the
year, that no month passes without the death of some person of
note; and it would be hard if it should be otherwise, when there
are at least two thousand persons of not in this kingdom, many of
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