| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: the tiny porch. Kennedy pulled up to a walk. A
woman, in full sunlight, was throwing a dripping
blanket over a line stretched between two old ap-
ple-trees. And as the bobtailed, long-necked chest-
nut, trying to get his head, jerked the left hand,
covered by a thick dogskin glove, the doctor raised
his voice over the hedge: "How's your child,
Amy?"
I had the time to see her dull face, red, not with
a mantling blush, but as if her flat cheeks had been
vigorously slapped, and to take in the squat figure,
Amy Foster |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: subsequently to be held down in the bottom of a box during a
performance of _L'Oncle Sam_, sobbing at intervals, "My
country! O my country!" While yet another (my new
acquaintance, Pinkerton) was supposed to have made the most
conspicuous figure in the actual battle. At one blow, he had
broken his own stool, and sent the largest of his opponents
back foremost through what we used to call a "conscientious
nude." It appears that, in the continuation of his flight, this
fallen warrior issued on the boulevard still framed in the burst
canvas.
It will be understood how much talk the incident aroused in the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde: every night of the season. You don't call that leading an idle life,
do you?
LORD CAVERSHAM. [Looking at her with a kindly twinkle in his eyes.]
You are a very charming young lady!
MABEL CHILTERN. How sweet of you to say that, Lord Caversham! Do
come to us more often. You know we are always at home on Wednesdays,
and you look so well with your star!
LORD CAVERSHAM. Never go anywhere now. Sick of London Society.
Shouldn't mind being introduced to my own tailor; he always votes on
the right side. But object strongly to being sent down to dinner
with my wife's milliner. Never could stand Lady Caversham's bonnets.
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