| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: felt them to be hands that, moving only to some purpose, were
capable of intervals of serene inaction.
"We had a long talk," Miss Trent went on; and she waited again
before adding, with the increased absence of stress that marked
her graver communications, "Aunt Virginia wants me to go abroad
with her."
Glennard looked up with a start. "Abroad? When?"
"Now--next month. To be gone two years."
He permitted himself a movement of tender derision. "Does she
really? Well, I want you to go abroad with ME--for any number of
years. Which offer do you accept?"
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: her falsehoods were readily believed, and her loud uproars led them
to suspect harsh and injudicious treatment on my part; and when, at
length, her bad disposition became manifest even to their
prejudiced eyes, I felt that the whole was attributed to me.
'What a naughty girl Fanny is getting!' Mrs. Bloomfield would say
to her spouse. 'Don't you observe, my dear, how she is altered
since she entered the schoolroom? She will soon be as bad as the
other two; and, I am sorry to say, they have quite deteriorated of
late.'
'You may say that,' was the answer. 'I've been thinking that same
myself. I thought when we got them a governess they'd improve;
Agnes Grey |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: has killed her child and for ever hears its last cry. Nevertheless,
she was simple and clumsy in her ways; her vacant smile had nothing
criminal in it, and you would have pronounced her innocent only from
seeing the large red and blue checked kerchief that covered her
stalwart bust, tucked into the tight-laced bodice of a lilac- and
white-striped gown. 'No,' said I to myself, 'I will not quit Vendome
without knowing the whole history of la Grande Breteche. To achieve
this end, I will make love to Rosalie if it proves necessary.'
" 'Rosalie!' said I one evening.
" 'Your servant, sir?'
" 'You are not married?' She started a little.
La Grande Breteche |
