| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Poor and Proud by Oliver Optic: placing a cent on her tray.
Katy started at the words, and reproved herself for her want of
meekness. She might, perhaps, have sold half a dozen sticks of
candy while she had been watching the sour gentleman, and
persuading herself that she had been very badly used. She tore
off a piece of paper, in which she wrapped up the candy for the
purchaser, and handed it to her.
"Thank you," said she, as she picked up the copper, and
transferred it to her pocket.
"Your candy looks very nice," added the lady evidently pleased
with Katy's polite manners.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather: seat of a hearse that stood backed up against the siding. They
straightened their stooping shoulders and lifted their heads, and
a flash of momentary animation kindled their dull eyes at that
cold, vibrant scream, the world-wide call for men. It stirred
them like the note of a trumpet; just as it had often stirred the
man who was coming home tonight, in his boyhood.
The night express shot, red as a rocket, from out the eastward
marsh lands and wound along the river shore under the long lines of
shivering poplars that sentineled the meadows, the escaping steam
hanging in gray masses against the pale sky and blotting out the
Milky Way. In a moment the red glare from the headlight streamed
The Troll Garden and Selected Stories |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen: Ivedy-Avedy too, but the little man only told them about Humpy-Dumpy. The Fir
Tree stood quite still and absorbed in thought; the birds in the wood had
never related the like of this. "Humpy-Dumpy fell downstairs, and yet he
married the princess! Yes, yes! That's the way of the world!" thought the Fir
Tree, and believed it all, because the man who told the story was so
good-looking. "Well, well! who knows, perhaps I may fall downstairs, too, and
get a princess as wife! And he looked forward with joy to the morrow, when he
hoped to be decked out again with lights, playthings, fruits, and tinsel.
"I won't tremble to-morrow!" thought the Fir Tree. "I will enjoy to the full
all my splendor! To-morrow I shall hear again the story of Humpy-Dumpy, and
perhaps that of Ivedy-Avedy too." And the whole night the Tree stood still and
Fairy Tales |
