| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Oakdale Affair by Edgar Rice Burroughs: said that after killing Paynter he had shot a girl witness
and thrown her from the car to prevent her squealing."
Once again the telephone bell rang, long and insist-
ently. The butler almost ran into the room. "Payson
wants you, sir," he cried to Burton, "in a hurry, sir, it's a
matter of life and death, sir!"
Burton sprang to the phone. When he left it he only
stopped at the doorway of the living room long enough
to call in: "A mob has the two prisoners at Payson and
are about to lynch them, and, my God, they're innocent.
We all know now who killed Paynter and I have known
The Oakdale Affair |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from O Pioneers! by Willa Cather: fallen and bled. From that spot there was
another trail, heavier than the first, where she
must have dragged herself back to Emil's body.
Once there, she seemed not to have struggled
any more. She had lifted her head to her lover's
breast, taken his hand in both her own, and
bled quietly to death. She was lying on her
right side in an easy and natural position, her
cheek on Emil's shoulder. On her face there was
a look of ineffable content. Her lips were parted
a little; her eyes were lightly closed, as if in a
O Pioneers! |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: ambitious as Napoleon, as poetic as Lord Byron, and yet a power
unknown, invisible, will compel you to bury your poetry within your
soul and turn your projects into dreams.
The illustrious Gaudissart was fated to encounter here in Vouvray one
of those indigenous jesters whose jests are not intolerable solely
because they have reached the perfection of the mocking art. Right or
wrong, the Tourangians are fond of inheriting from their parents.
Consequently the doctrines of Saint-Simon were especially hated and
villified among them. In Touraine hatred and villification take the
form of superb disdain and witty maliciousness worthy of the land of
good stories and practical jokes,--a spirit which, alas! is yielding,
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