| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane: galling foes away from the fence.
He expected that his companions, weary and
stiffened, would have to be driven to this assault,
but as he turned toward them he perceived with
a certain surprise that they were giving quick
and unqualified expressions of assent. There was
an ominous, clanging overture to the charge
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when the shafts of the bayonets rattled upon the
rifle barrels. At the yelled words of command
the soldiers sprang forward in eager leaps.
The Red Badge of Courage |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: think, the masterpiece of this unknown Society. In the fourth, and an
Academician! This boy of fourteen, a poet already, the protege of
Madame de Stael, a coming genius, said Father Haugoult, was to be one
of us! a wizard, a youth capable of writing a composition or a
translation while we were being called into lessons, and of learning
his lessons by reading them through but once. Louis Lambert bewildered
all our ideas. And Father Haugoult's curiosity and impatience to see
this new boy added fuel to our excited fancy.
"If he has pigeons, he can have no pigeon-house; there is not room for
another. Well, it cannot be helped," said one boy, since famous as an
agriculturist.
Louis Lambert |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens: said,
'Am I to live or die? Do you repent?'
'Oh!--do YOU?' she answered. 'Will you, while time remains? Do
not believe that I could save you, if I dared.'
'Say if you would,' he answered with an oath, as he tried to
disengage himself and pass on. 'Say if you would.'
'Listen to me for one moment,' she returned; 'for but a moment. I
am but newly risen from a sick-bed, from which I never hoped to
rise again. The best among us think, at such a time, of good
intentions half-performed and duties left undone. If I have ever,
since that fatal night, omitted to pray for your repentance before
Barnaby Rudge |
