| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: milking time. I desire to speak somewhere without bounds; like a
man in a waking moment, to men in their waking moments; for I am
convinced that I cannot exaggerate enough even to lay the foundation
of a true expression. Who that has heard a strain of music feared
then lest he should speak extravagantly any more forever? In view
of the future or possible, we should live quite laxly and undefined
in front, our outlines dim and misty on that side; as our shadows
reveal an insensible perspiration toward the sun. The volatile
truth of our words should continually betray the inadequacy of the
residual statement. Their truth is instantly translated; its
literal monument alone remains. The words which express our faith
Walden |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber: spend their Saturday afternoons and Sundays thus, prowling
about a city's streets. Fanny Brandeis knew it too, in her
heart. She knew that the Ella Monahans of her world spent
their holidays in stayless relaxation, manicuring, mending a
bit, skimming the Sunday papers, massaging crows'-feet
somewhat futilely. She knew that women buyers do not, as a
rule, catch their breath with delight at sight of the pock-
marked old Field Columbian museum in Jackson Park, softened
and beautified by the kindly gray chiffon of the lake mist,
and tinted by the rouge of the sunset glow, so that it is a
thing of spectral loveliness. Successful mercantile women,
Fanny Herself |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Edition of The Ambassadors by Henry James: production before us exhausts the interesting questions it raises,
but that the Novel remains still, under the right persuasion, the
most independent, most elastic, most prodigious of literary forms.
HENRY JAMES.
Book First
I
Strether's first question, when he reached the hotel, was about his
friend; yet on his learning that Waymarsh was apparently not to
arrive till evening he was not wholly disconcerted. A telegram from
him bespeaking a room "only if not noisy," reply paid, was produced
for the enquirer at the office, so that the understanding they
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