| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: An appalling splash within two yards of him was followed by a
loud, rushing sound, DIMINUENDO, which seemed to travel back
through the air to the fort and died in an explosion which
stirred the very river to its deeps! A rising sheet of water
curved over him, fell down upon him, blinded him, strangled
him! The cannon had taken an hand in the game. As he shook
his head free from the commotion of the smitten water he
heard the deflected shot humming through the air ahead, and
in an instant it was cracking and smashing the branches in
the forest beyond.
"They will not do that again," he thought; "the next time
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: ancestors and stood back of the market-place. This house, with its
slate-covered roof, was built between a passage-way and a narrow
street that led to the river. The interior was so unevenly graded that
it caused people to stumble. A narrow hall separated the kitchen from
the parlour, where Madame Aubain sat all day in a straw armchair near
the window. Eight mahogany chairs stood in a row against the white
wainscoting. An old piano, standing beneath a barometer, was covered
with a pyramid of old books and boxes. On either side of the yellow
marble mantelpiece, in Louis XV. style, stood a tapestry armchair. The
clock represented a temple of Vesta; and the whole room smelled musty,
as it was on a lower level than the garden.
A Simple Soul |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Confidence by Henry James: I suppose a good wife ought to invent excuses for her husband--
ought to throw herself into the breach; is n't that what they call it?
But I am afraid I am not a good wife. Do you think I am a good wife,
Mr. Longueville? You once stayed three months with us, and you had
a chance to see. I don't ask you that seriously, because you never
tell the truth. I always do; so I will say I am not a good wife.
And then the breach is too big, and I am too little. Oh, I am
too little, Mrs. Vivian; I know I am too little. I am the smallest
woman living; Gordon can scarcely see me with a microscope,
and I believe he has the most powerful one in America. He is going
to get another here; that is one of the things he came abroad for;
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