| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery: "I don't know what to do with her," said Marilla. "She declares
she won't go back to school. I never saw a child so worked up.
I've been expecting trouble ever since she started to school.
I knew things were going too smooth to last. She's so high strung.
What would you advise, Rachel?"
"Well, since you've asked my advice, Marilla," said Mrs. Lynde
amiably--Mrs. Lynde dearly loved to be asked for advice--"I'd
just humor her a little at first, that's what I'd do. It's my
belief that Mr. Phillips was in the wrong. Of course, it
doesn't do to say so to the children, you know. And of course he
did right to punish her yesterday for giving way to temper. But
Anne of Green Gables |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: English, or bad style; it is abominably bad narrative besides.
Certainly the contrast is remarkable; and it is one that throws a
strong light upon the subject of this paper. For here we have a
man of the finest creative instinct touching with perfect certainty
and charm the romantic junctures of his story; and we find him
utterly careless, almost, it would seem, incapable, in the
technical matter of style, and not only frequently weak, but
frequently wrong in points of drama. In character parts, indeed,
and particularly in the Scotch, he was delicate, strong and
truthful; but the trite, obliterated features of too many of his
heroes have already wearied two generations of readers. At times
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Rezanov by Gertrude Atherton: philosophically, fulfilling its inevitable destiny.
If he had not been beyond humor, he would have
smiled at the idea that in the face of all eternity it
mattered what nation on one little planet eventually
possessed a fragment called California. To him
that fair land was empty and purposeless save for
one figure, and even of her he thought with the
terrible calm of dissolution. During these last
months of illness and isolation he had been less
lonely than at any time of his life save during those
few weeks in California, for he had lived with her
Rezanov |
