| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Yates Pride by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: "So that is the reason you always ran away from me, years ago, so
that I never had a chance to ask you?"
"Of course," said Eudora. "No woman of my family ever allows a
declaration which she does not intend to accept. I was always
taught that by my mother."
Then a small but insistent cry rent the air. "The baby is
awake!" cried Eudora, and ran, or, rather, paced swiftly--Eudora
had been taught never to run--and Lawton followed. It was he who
finally quieted the child, holding the little thing in his arms.
But the baby, before that, cried so long and lustily that all the
women in the Glynn house opposite were on the alert, and also
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Heart of the West by O. Henry: pay?"
The cattleman's clear grey eyes looked steadily from under his grizzly
brows into the huckleberry optics of his guest. After a little he said
simply, and not ungraciously, "I'll be much obliged to you, son, if
you won't mention money any more. Once was quite a plenty. Folks I ask
to my ranch don't have to pay anything, and they very scarcely ever
offers it. Supper'll be ready in half an hour. There's water in the
pitcher, and some, cooler, to drink, in that red jar hanging on the
gallery."
"Where's the bell?" asked McGuire, looking about.
"Bell for what?"
Heart of the West |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: perhaps for entire races, - anything that assumes the necessity of
the extermination of instincts which were given to be regulated, -
no matter by what name you call it, - no matter whether a fakir, or
a monk, or a deacon believes it, - if received, ought to produce
insanity in every well-regulated mind. That condition becomes a
normal one, under the circumstances. I am very much ashamed of
some people for retaining their reason, when they know perfectly
well that if they were not the most stupid or the most selfish of
human beings, they would become NON-COMPOTES at once.
[Nobody understood this but the theological student and the
schoolmistress. They looked intelligently at each other; but
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
