| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Summer by Edith Wharton: reading out of the same book words that had the same
dread sound of finality:
"I require and charge you both, as ye will answer at
the dreadful day of judgment when the secrets of all
hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know
any impediment whereby ye may not be lawfully joined
together..."
Charity raised her eyes and met Mr. Royall's. They
were still looking at her kindly and steadily. "I
will!" she heard him say a moment later, after another
interval of words that she had failed to catch. She
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: hate cordially, without offending against the social conventions
that require two brothers to wear a mask if the older will
succeed to the entail, and the other to the fortune of a younger
son. The whole civilization of Europe turns upon the principle of
hereditary succession as upon a pivot; it would be madness to
subvert the principle; but could we not, in an age that prides
itself upon its mechanical inventions, perfect this essential
portion of the social machinery?
If the author has preserved the old-fashioned style of address To
the Reader before a work wherein he endeavors to represent all
literary forms, it is for the purpose of making a remark that
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Magic of Oz by L. Frank Baum: inside their cage again.
By morning the mud had dried hard on the Glass Cat and it was a dull
blue color throughout. Dorothy and Trot were horrified, but the
Wizard shook his head and said it served the Glass Cat right for
teasing the monkeys.
Cap'n Bill, with his strong hands, soon bent the golden wires of the
monkeys' cage into the proper position and then he asked the Wizard if
he should wash the Glass Cat in the water of the brook.
"Not just yet," answered the Wizard. "The Cat deserves to be
punished, so I think I'll leave that blue mud--which is as bad as
paint--upon her body until she gets to the Emerald City. The silly
The Magic of Oz |
