| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: in a corner of the sitting-room, it was already Christmas Eve.
After supper we all gathered there, and even grandfather, reading his
paper by the table, looked up with friendly interest now and then.
The cedar was about five feet high and very shapely.
We hung it with the gingerbread animals, strings of popcorn,
and bits of candle which Fuchs had fitted into pasteboard sockets.
Its real splendours, however, came from the most unlikely place
in the world--from Otto's cowboy trunk. I had never seen anything
in that trunk but old boots and spurs and pistols, and a fascinating
mixture of yellow leather thongs, cartridges, and shoemaker's wax.
From under the lining he now produced a collection of brilliantly coloured
My Antonia |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: over, that his state was unsteady. Even now, he did not long endure
silence between us; yet the eagerness which he threw into our discussions
did not, it seemed to me, so much proceed from present interest in their
subjects (though interest there was at times) as from anxiety lest one
particular subject, ever present with him, should creep in unawares. So
much I, at any rate, concluded, and bided my time for the creeping in
unawares, content meanwhile to parry some of the reproaches which he now
and again cast at me with an earnestness real or feigned.
We had made now considerable progress, and were come to a space of sand
and cabins and intersecting railroad tracks, where freight cars and
locomotives stood, and negroes of all shapes, but of one lowering and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: shrewdness. The town fairly smelt of respectability; the tree-shaded
streets, the children in socks and small crisp-laundered garments,
the houses set back, each in its square of shaved lawn, all peaceful,
middle class and unexciting. The last town in the world for Judson
Clark, the last profession, the last house, this shabby old brick
before him.
He smiled rather grimly as he reflected that if Gregory had been
right in his identification, be was, beyond those windows at that
moment, very possibly warning Clark against himself. Gregory would
know his type, that he never let go. He drew himself up a little.
The house door opened, and Gregory came out, turning toward the
The Breaking Point |
