| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor: will you, Enos--commence at once by telling me now--to my face--my
principal faults?' I answered after a moment's reflection--`You
have a great deal of intellectual arrogance, and you are,
physically, very indolent'
"He did not flinch from the self-invited test, though he looked a
little surprised.
"`Well put,' said he, `though I do not say that you are entirely
correct. Now, what are my merits?'
"`You are clear-sighted,' I answered, `an earnest seeker after
truth, and courageous in the avowal of your thoughts.'
"This restored the balance, and we soon began to confess our own
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: presence of the letter. The reader may choose among these
theories. We have thrown all the light we could acquire upon the
portent, and would gladly, now that it has done its office, erase
its deep print out of our own brain, where long meditation has
fixed it in very undesirable distinctness.
It is singular, nevertheless, that certain persons, who were
spectators of the whole scene, and professed never once to have
removed their eyes from the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, denied that
there was any mark whatever on his breast, more than on a
new-born infant's. Neither, by their report, had his dying words
The Scarlet Letter |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: should not the reader share in that inexplicable feeling? Is it so
difficult to put ourselves in unison with the vague and nervous
sadness which casts its gray tints all about us, and is, in fact, a
semi-illness, the gentle sufferings of which are often pleasing? If
the reader is of those who sometimes think upon the dear ones they
have lost, if he is alone, if the day is waning or the night has come,
let him read on; otherwise, he should lay aside this book at once. If
he has never buried a good old relative, infirm and poor, he will not
understand these pages, which to some will seem redolent of musk, to
others as colorless and virtuous as those of Florian. In short, the
reader must have known the luxury of tears, must have felt the silent
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