| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost: my own.' I enquired what means he intended to employ. `None
other,' said he, `than merely to open the door of her cell for
her at night, and to conduct her to the street door, where you,
of course, will be to receive her.' I asked whether there was no
danger of her being recognised as she traversed the long
galleries and the courts. He admitted that there was danger, but
that nothing could be done without some slight risk.
"Although I was delighted to find him so determined, I called M.
de T----, and informed him of the project, and of the only
difficulty in the way. He thought it not so easy of execution.
He allowed the possibility of escaping thus: `But if she be
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from McTeague by Frank Norris: A sudden vague terror seized her; she left McTeague and
ran down the hall and caught her mother around the neck.
"I don't WANT you to go," she whispered in her mother's
ear, sobbing. "Oh, mamma, I--I'm 'fraid."
"Ach, Trina, you preak my heart. Don't gry, poor leetle
girl." She rocked Trina in her arms as though she were a
child again. "Poor leetle scairt girl, don' gry--soh--soh--
soh, dere's nuttun to pe 'fraid oaf. Dere, go to your
hoasban'. Listen, popper's galling again; go den; goot-by."
She loosened Trina's arms and started down the stairs. Trina
leaned over the banisters, straining her eyes after her
McTeague |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Death of the Lion by Henry James: "Very true," I reflected; "the sort of letter you mean goes
straight into the fire."
"How do you know the sort I mean?" My interlocutress had blushed
and smiled, and in a moment she added: "I don't believe he gets
many like them!"
"I'm sure they're beautiful, but he burns without reading." I
didn't add that I had convinced him he ought to.
"Isn't he then in danger of burning things of importance?"
"He would perhaps be so if distinguished men hadn't an infallible
nose for nonsense."
She looked at me a moment - her face was sweet and gay. "Do YOU
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