The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The American by Henry James: and extremely good-humored, there was something vaguely defiant in
its concessions, and something profoundly reassuring in its reserve.
The cut of this gentleman's mustache, with the two premature
wrinkles in the cheek above it, and the fashion of his garments,
in which an exposed shirt-front and a cerulean cravat played perhaps
an obtrusive part, completed the conditions of his identity.
We have approached him, perhaps, at a not especially favorable moment;
he is by no means sitting for his portrait. But listless
as he lounges there, rather baffled on the aesthetic question,
and guilty of the damning fault (as we have lately discovered it to be)
of confounding the merit of the artist with that of his work
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Case of the Golden Bullet by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: original ring of hers, her wedding ring which she had defiled,
I sent in the form of a bullet straight to her lover's heart.
Yes, I have committed a crime, but I feel that I am less criminal
than those two whom I judged and condemned, and whose sentence I
carried out as I now shall carry out my own sentence with a hand
which will not tremble. That I can do this myself, I have you to
thank for, you who can look into the souls of men and recognise
the most hidden motives, you who have not only a wonderful brain
but a heart that can feel. You, I hope, will sometimes think
kindly of your grateful
LEO KNIEPP.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso: With sighs and tears she gan them softly pray
To keep that promise, when the skies were dim,
To this and that knight did she plain and say,
What grief she felt to part withouten him:
Meanwhile the ten had donned their armor best,
And taken leave of Godfrey and the rest.
LXXVIII
The duke advised them every one apart,
How light, how trustless was the Pagan's faith,
And told what policy, what wit, what art,
Avoids deceit, which heedless men betray'th;
|