| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: in this country, my shade of color is so slight, and that of my
wife and family scarce perceptible. Well, perhaps, on sufferance,
I might. But, to tell you the truth, I have no wish to.
"My sympathies are not for my father's race, but for my mother's.
To him I was no more than a fine dog or horse: to my poor
heart-broken mother I was a _child_; and, though I never saw
her, after the cruel sale that separated us, till she died, yet I
_know_ she always loved me dearly. I know it by my own heart.
When I think of all she suffered, of my own early sufferings, of
the distresses and struggles of my heroic wife, of my sister, sold
in the New Orleans slave-market,--though I hope to have no unchristian
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence: she knew. She had to submit to it. But she would never entreat it
or make friends with it. Blind, with her face shut hard and blind,
she was pushed towards the door. The days passed, the weeks,
the months.
Sometimes, in the sunny afternoons, she seemed almost happy.
"I try to think of the nice times--when we went to Mablethorpe,
and Robin Hood's Bay, and Shanklin," she said. "After all,
not everybody has seen those beautiful places. And wasn't it beautiful!
I try to think of that, not of the other things."
Then, again, for a whole evening she spoke not a word;
neither did he. They were together, rigid, stubborn, silent. He went
Sons and Lovers |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Desert Gold by Zane Grey: passions. Rojas wants this girl only to have her, then kill her.
It's damn strange, boys, and even with Thorne here our troubles
have just begun."
"Tom, you spoke correct," said Jim Ladd, in his cool drawl.
"Shore I'm not sayin' what I think," added Ladd. But the look
of him was not indicative of a tranquil optimism.
Thorne was put to bed in Gale's room. He was very weak, yet he
would keep Mercedes's hand and gaze at her with unbelieving eyes.
Mercedes's failing hold on hope and strength seemed to have been
a fantasy; she was again vivid, magnetic, beautiful, shot through
and through with intense and throbbing life. She induced him to
Desert Gold |
