| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: fundamental principle aforesaid, I soon learned, as will be
seen, to estimate Mrs. Bullfrog's deficiencies and superfluities
at exactly their proper value.
The same morning that Mrs. Bullfrog and I came together as a
unit, we took two seats in the stage-coach and began our journey
towards my place of business. There being no other passengers, we
were as much alone and as free to give vent to our raptures as if
I had hired a hack for the matrimonial jaunt. My bride looked
charmingly in a green silk calash and riding habit of pelisse
cloth; and whenever her red lips parted with a smile, each tooth
appeared like an inestimable pearl. Such was my passionate warmth
Mosses From An Old Manse |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: the toes, as scrub-women's shoes always are. Tillie's thin hair
was wadded back into a moist knob at the back and skewered with a
gray-black hairpin. From her parboiled, shriveled fingers to her
ruddy, perspiring face there was nothing of grace or beauty about
Tillie. And yet Heiny found something pleasing there. He could
not have told you why, so how can I, unless to say that it was,
perhaps, for much the same reason that we rejoice in the wholesome,
safe, reassuring feel of the gray woolen blanket on our bed when we
wake from a horrid dream.
"A Happy New Year to you," said Heiny gravely, and took his
hand out of his pocket.
Buttered Side Down |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from In the Cage by Henry James: the human herd; this was so constant, it had so the effect of
cheapening her privilege, that there were long stretches in which
inspiration, divination and interest quite dropped. The great
thing was the flashes, the quick revivals, absolute accidents all,
and neither to be counted on nor to be resisted. Some one had only
sometimes to put in a penny for a stamp and the whole thing was
upon her. She was so absurdly constructed that these were
literally the moments that made up--made up for the long stiffness
of sitting there in the stocks, made up for the cunning hostility
of Mr. Buckton and the importunate sympathy of the counter-clerk,
made up for the daily deadly flourishy letter from Mr. Mudge, made
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