| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather: for kindling and it was evident that the artist did not value his
work highly.
It was the first day of winter on the Divide. Canute stumbled
into his shanty carrying a basket of. cobs, and after filling the
stove, sat down on a stool and crouched his seven foot frame over
the fire, staring drearily out of the window at the wide gray
sky. He knew by heart every individual clump of bunch grass in the
miles of red shaggy prairie that stretched before his cabin. He
knew it in all the deceitful loveliness of its early summer, in all
the bitter barrenness of its autumn. He had seen it smitten by all
the plagues of Egypt. He had seen it parched by drought, and
The Troll Garden and Selected Stories |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens: reach, I would strike him dead before me, even now!" The man asked
"Who?" She said, "The father of her boy."'
Sir John drew back his outstretched hand, and seeing that the
locksmith paused, signed to him with easy politeness and without
any new appearance of emotion, to proceed.
'It was the first word she had ever spoken, from which it could be
understood that she had any relative on earth. "Was the child
alive?" he asked. "Yes." He asked her where it was, its name, and
whether she had any wish respecting it. She had but one, she said.
It was that the boy might live and grow, in utter ignorance of his
father, so that no arts might teach him to be gentle and
Barnaby Rudge |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: the count; on the upper step of the bed stood a little table, on which
the waiting-woman served every night in a gold or silver cup a drink
prepared with spices.
After we have gone some way in life we know the secret influence
exerted by places on the condition of the soul. Who has not had his
darksome moments, when fresh hope has come into his heart from things
that surrounded him? The fortunate, or the unfortunate man, attributes
an intelligent countenance to the things among which he lives; he
listens to them, he consults them--so naturally superstitious is he.
At this moment the countess turned her eyes upon all these articles of
furniture, as if they were living beings whose help and protection she
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