| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy: panel, as if with the impatient tips of fingers whose owner
thought not whether a knocker were there or no. Without a pause,
and possibly guided by the stray beam of light on the landing, the
newcomer ascended the staircase as the first had done. Grace was
sufficiently visible, and the lady, for a lady it was, came to her
side.
"I could make nobody hear down-stairs," said Felice Charmond, with
lips whose dryness could almost be heard, and panting, as she
stood like one ready to sink on the floor with distress. "What
is--the matter--tell me the worst! Can he live?" She looked at
Grace imploringly, without perceiving poor Suke, who, dismayed at
The Woodlanders |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: of the philosopher, but that it lies ingrained in the character of
the people. Indeed the genius of the one may be said to have
consisted in divining the genius of the other. Confucius formulated
the prevailing practice, and in so doing helped to make it perpetual.
He gave expression to the national feeling, and like expressions,
generally his, served to stamp the idea all the more indelibly upon
the national consciousness.
In this manner the family from a natural relation grew into a highly
unnatural social anachronism. The loose ties of a roving life
became fetters of a fixed conventionality. Bonds originally of
mutual advantage hardened into restrictions by which the young were
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Men of Iron by Howard Pyle: They sat up and looked around them in silent wonder. They were in
a bower of leafy green. It was the top story of the tower, the
roof of which had crumbled and toppled in, leaving it open to the
sky, with only here and there a slanting beam or two supporting a
portion of the tiled roof, affording shelter for the nests of the
pigeons crowded closely together. Over everything the ivy had
grown in a mantling sheet--a net-work of shimmering green,
through which the sunlight fell flickering.
"This passeth wonder," said Gascoyne, at last breaking the
silence.
"Aye," said Myles, "I did never see the like in all my life."
Men of Iron |
