| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: in the lower part of the house. At an open window of a room in the
second story, hanging over some pots of beautiful and delicate
flowers,--exotics, but which had never known a more genial sunshine
than that of the New England autumn, --was the figure of a young
lady, an exotic, like the flowers, and beautiful and delicate as
they. Her presence imparted an indescribable grace and faint witchery
to the whole edifice. In other respects, it was a substantial,
jolly-looking mansion, and seemed fit to be the residence of a
patriarch, who might establish his own headquarters in the front
gable and assign one of the remainder to each of his six children,
while the great chimney in the centre should symbolize the old
House of Seven Gables |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: not have minded. She rather liked it when he swore. He possessed
that quality in his profanity of not offending by it. It is quite
wonderful how much worse the same word will sound in one man's
lips than in another's. But she did not hear him. Her mind was
among a litter of broken sentences. Each thought which she began
ran out into the empty air, or came against some stone wall. So
there she sat, her eyes now upon that inexorable blank sheet that
lay before her, waiting, and now turned with vacant hopelessness
upon the sundry objects in the room. And while she thus sat
accomplishing nothing, opposite to her the black head bent down,
and the steady pen moved from phrase to phrase.
The Virginian |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: fashioned Flemish interiors rejoice the eye with their mellow tints,
and the feelings with their genuine heartiness. There, work implies no
weariness, and the pipe is a happy adaptation of Neapolitan "far-
niente." Thence comes the peaceful sentiment in Art (its most
essential condition), patience, and the element which renders its
creations durable, namely, conscience. Indeed, the Flemish character
lies in the two words, patience and conscience; words which seem at
first to exclude the richness of poetic light and shade, and to make
the manners and customs of the country as flat as its vast plains, as
cold as its foggy skies. And yet it is not so. Civilization has
brought her power to bear, and has modified all things, even the
|
