| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: Mrs. Harling gave us a lively account of Ambrosch's behaviour
throughout the interview; how he kept jumping up and putting
on his cap as if he were through with the whole business, and how
his mother tweaked his coat-tail and prompted him in Bohemian.
Mrs. Harling finally agreed to pay three dollars a week
for Antonia's services--good wages in those days--and to keep
her in shoes. There had been hot dispute about the shoes,
Mrs. Shimerda finally saying persuasively that she would send
Mrs. Harling three fat geese every year to `make even.'
Ambrosch was to bring his sister to town next Saturday.
`She'll be awkward and rough at first, like enough,' grandmother said
My Antonia |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Emma by Jane Austen: that every thing was as it should be; and within a few minutes
were joined by the contents of another carriage, which Emma
could not hear the sound of at first, without great surprize.
"So unreasonably early!" she was going to exclaim; but she presently
found that it was a family of old friends, who were coming, like herself,
by particular desire, to help Mr. Weston's judgment; and they were
so very closely followed by another carriage of cousins, who had been
entreated to come early with the same distinguishing earnestness,
on the same errand, that it seemed as if half the company might
soon be collected together for the purpose of preparatory inspection.
Emma perceived that her taste was not the only taste on which
Emma |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: two arts in one,--the spirit of poesy with pictorial form.
This plum-tree is but a blossom. Precocious harbinger of a host
of flowers, its gay heralding over, it vanishes not to be recalled,
for it bears no edible fruit.
The next event in the series might fairly be called phenomenal.
Early in April takes place what is perhaps as superb a sight as
anything in this world, the blossoming of the cherry-trees. Indeed,
it is not easy to do the thing justice in description. If the plum
invited admiration, the cherry commands it; for to see the sakura in
flower for the first time is to experience a new sensation.
Familiar as a man may be with cherry blossoms at home, the sight
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