| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from O Pioneers! by Willa Cather: other end of the hall, walking about with the
shoulder-motion he had acquired among the
Mexicans, studying the floor with his intent,
deep-set eyes. Marie began to take down and
fold her shawls. She did not glance up again.
The young people drifted to the other end of the
hall where the guitar was sounding. In a mo-
ment she heard Emil and Raoul singing:--
"Across the Rio Grand-e
O Pioneers! |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: that sours a woman so terribly as to be left alone without a man,
especially if she is married, for then it is impossible for her to accept
the attention of others--unless she is unfortunately a widow. Of course, I
know that sea-captains are subject to terrible temptations, and they are as
inflammable as tenor singers--that is why you must present a bright and
energetic appearance, and try and make him proud of you when his ship
reaches port."
This husband that I had created for the benefit of Frau Fischer became in
her hands so substantial a figure that I could no longer see myself sitting
on a rock with seaweed in my hair, awaiting that phantom ship for which all
women love to suppose they hunger. Rather I saw myself pushing a
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: Montefiore, impelled as much by the instinct of a man of gallantry as
by those vague hopes which cannot be explained, and to which we give
the name of presentiments (a word of astonishing verbal accuracy),
Montefiore spent the first hours of the night at his window,
endeavoring to look below him to the secret apartment where,
undoubtedly, the merchant and his wife had hidden the love and
joyfulness of their old age. The ware-room of the "entresol" separated
him from the rooms on the ground-floor. The captain therefore could
not have recourse to noises significantly made from one floor to the
other, an artificial language which all lovers know well how to
create. But chance, or it may have been the young girl herself, came
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