| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The American by Henry James: in a sort of mock-caressing tone.
"Present monsieur," said his sister-in-law.
The young man answered, "Mr. Newman!"
"I can't courtesy to you, monsieur, or I shall spill my tea," said the lady.
"So Claire receives strangers, like that?" she added, in a low voice,
in French, to her brother-in-law.
"Apparently!" he answered with a smile. Newman stood
a moment, and then he approached Madame de Cintre.
She looked up at him as if she were thinking of something to say.
But she seemed to think of nothing; so she simply smiled.
He sat down near her and she handed him a cup of tea. For a few
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Paradise Lost by John Milton: For Gods! Yet him God the Most High vouchsafes
To call by vision, from his father's house,
His kindred, and false Gods, into a land
Which he will show him; and from him will raise
A mighty nation; and upon him shower
His benediction so, that in his seed
All nations shall be blest: he straight obeys;
Not knowing to what land, yet firm believes:
I see him, but thou canst not, with what faith
He leaves his Gods, his friends, and native soil,
Ur of Chaldaea, passing now the ford
Paradise Lost |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: Now the first merit which attracts in the pages of a good
writer, or the talk of a brilliant conversationalist, is the
apt choice and contrast of the words employed. It is,
indeed, a strange art to take these blocks, rudely conceived
for the purpose of the market or the bar, and by tact of
application touch them to the finest meanings and
distinctions, restore to them their primal energy, wittily
shift them to another issue, or make of them a drum to rouse
the passions. But though this form of merit is without doubt
the most sensible and seizing, it is far from being equally
present in all writers. The effect of words in Shakespeare,
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