| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: little or no intercourse for the last two centuries,--this eminent
gentleman might invite Hepzibah to quit the ruinous House of the
Seven Gables, and come over to dwell with her kindred at Pyncheon
Hall. But, for reasons the most imperative, she could not yield to
his request. It was more probable, therefore, that the descendants
of a Pyncheon who had emigrated to Virginia, in some past generation,
and became a great planter there,--hearing of Hepzibah's destitution,
and impelled by the splendid generosity of character with which their
Virginian mixture must have enriched the New England blood,--would
send her a remittance of a thousand dollars, with a hint of repeating
the favor annually. Or,--and, surely, anything so undeniably just
House of Seven Gables |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: the exchange of a few perfunctory letters, written with
indifference by the daughter, and with difficulty by Mrs.
Manstey, whose right hand was growing stiff with gout. Even had
she felt a stronger desire for her daughter's companionship, Mrs.
Manstey's increasing infirmity, which caused her to dread the
three flights of stairs between her room and the street, would
have given her pause on the eve of undertaking so long a journey;
and without perhaps, formulating these reasons she had long since
accepted as a matter of course her solitary life in New York.
She was, indeed, not quite lonely, for a few friends still toiled
up now and then to her room; but their visits grew rare as the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: James Gatz--that was really, or at least legally, his name. He had
changed it at the age of seventeen and at the specific moment that
witnessed the beginning of his career--when he saw Dan Cody's yacht drop
anchor over the most insidious flat on Lake Superior. It was James Gatz
who had been loafing along the beach that afternoon in a torn green
jersey and a pair of canvas pants, but it was already Jay Gatsby who
borrowed a rowboat, pulled out to the TUOLOMEE, and informed Cody that
a wind might catch him and break him up in half an hour.
I suppose he'd had the name ready for a long time, even then. His
parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people--his imagination had
never really accepted them as his parents at all. The truth was that
The Great Gatsby |
