| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: This he would not risk; he meant to help the others, to get THEM
safely away; for he had pledged his word to them, and his word he
WOULD keep. And whilst he ate and chatted, he thought and planned,
whilst, up in the loft, the poor, anxious woman racked her brain as to
what she should do, and endured agonies of longing to rush down to
him, yet not daring to move for fear of upsetting his plans.
"I didn't know," Blakeney was saying jovially, "that you. . .
er. . .were in holy orders."
"I. . .er. . .hem. . ." stammered Chauvelin. The calm impudence
of his antagonist had evidently thrown him off his usual balance.
"But, la! I should have known you anywhere," continued Sir
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: disgrace to an Irish village.
Then six miles of macadamized road showed us that the team could
move. A railway ran between us and the banks of the Willamette,
and another above us through the mountains. All the land was
dotted with small townships, and the roads were full of farmers
in their town wagons, bunches of tow-haired, boggle-eyed urchins
sitting in the hay behind. The men generally looked like
loafers, but their women were all well dressed.
Brown braiding on a tailor-made jacket does not, however, consort
with hay-wagons. Then we struck into the woods along what
California called a camina reale--a good road--and Portland a
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: for ordinary trees, twisting down almost to the earth, and rising
again into the air. It was connected with the tragical story of
the unfortunate Andre, who had been taken prisoner hard by; and
was universally known by the name of Major Andre's tree. The
common people regarded it with a mixture of respect and
superstition, partly out of sympathy for the fate of its ill-
starred namesake, and partly from the tales of strange sights,
and doleful lamentations, told concerning it.
As Ichabod approached this fearful tree, he began to
whistle; he thought his whistle was answered; it was but a blast
sweeping sharply through the dry branches. As he approached a
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
