| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: contrasts. He shifted this and that candle, he made the spaces
different, he effaced the disfigurement of a possible gap. There
were subtle and complex relations, a scheme of cross-reference, and
moments in which he seemed to catch a glimpse of the void so
sensible to the woman who wandered in exile or sat where he had
seen her with the portrait of Acton Hague. Finally, in this way,
he arrived at a conception of the total, the ideal, which left a
clear opportunity for just another figure. "Just one more - to
round it off; just one more, just one," continued to hum in his
head. There was a strange confusion in the thought, for he felt
the day to be near when he too should be one of the Others. What
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: "No doubt it might damage you in a business sense," the
captain agreed. "And I'm pleased you take that view; for I've
turned kind of soft upon the job. There's been some
crookedness about, no doubt of it; but, Law bless you! if we
dropped upon the troupe, all the premier artists would slip right
out with the boodle in their grip-sacks, and you'd only collar a
lot of old mutton-headed shell-backs that didn't know the back
of the business from the front. I don't take much stock in
Mercantile Jack, you know that; but, poor devil, he's got to go
where he's told; and if you make trouble, ten to one it'll make
you sick to see the innocents who have to stand the racket. It
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from O Pioneers! by Willa Cather: a mulberry hedge, was the orchard, its fruit trees
knee-deep in timothy grass. Any one there-
abouts would have told you that this was one
of the richest farms on the Divide, and that
the farmer was a woman, Alexandra Bergson.
If you go up the hill and enter Alexandra's
big house, you will find that it is curiously
unfinished and uneven in comfort. One room
is papered, carpeted, over-furnished; the next
is almost bare. The pleasantest rooms in the
O Pioneers! |
