| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde: were out of the reach of hope before may be within hope's reach
now.
HESTER. Nothing should be out of the reach of hope. Life is a
hope.
LADY HUNSTANTON. I fancy, Caroline, that Diplomacy is what Lord
Illingworth is aiming at. I heard that he was offered Vienna. But
that may not be true.
LADY CAROLINE. I don't think that England should be represented
abroad by an unmarried man, Jane. It might lead to complications.
LADY HUNSTANTON. You are too nervous, Caroline. Believe me, you
are too nervous. Besides, Lord Illingworth may marry any day. I
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Wrong Box by Stevenson & Osbourne: in his mind a dozen grudges, and suspicions, and alarms. It
passed Christchurch by the sea, Herne with its pinewoods,
Ringwood on its mazy river. A little behind time, but not much
for the South-Western, it drew up at the platform of a station,
in the midst of the New Forest, the real name of which (in case
the railway company 'might have the law of me') I shall veil
under the alias of Browndean.
Many passengers put their heads to the window, and among the rest
an old gentleman on whom I willingly dwell, for I am nearly done
with him now, and (in the whole course of the present narrative)
I am not in the least likely to meet another character so decent.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Heart of the West by O. Henry: humming-bird with one stone.
While the sunny-haired ornithologist was pursuing his studies the
Cisco Kid was also attending to his professional duties. He moodily
shot up a saloon in a small cow village on Quintana Creek, killed the
town marshal (plugging him neatly in the centre of his tin badge), and
then rode away, morose and unsatisfied. No true artist is uplifted by
shooting an aged man carrying an old-style .38 bulldog.
On his way the Kid suddenly experienced the yearning that all men feel
when wrong-doing loses its keen edge of delight. He yearned for the
woman he loved to reassure him that she was his in spite of it. He
wanted her to call his bloodthirstiness bravery and his cruelty
Heart of the West |
