| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: Hardly a week after his decease, one of the Cunard steamers brought
intelligence of the death, by cholera, of Judge Pyncheon's son,
just at the point of embarkation for his native land. By this
misfortune Clifford became rich; so did Hepzibah; so did our little
village maiden, and, through her, that sworn foe of wealth and all
manner of conservatism, --the wild reformer,--Holgrave!
It was now far too late in Clifford's life for the good opinion
of society to be worth the trouble and anguish of a formal
vindication. What he needed was the love of a very few; not the
admiration, or even the respect, of the unknown many. The latter
might probably have been won for him, had those on whom the
House of Seven Gables |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Adventure by Jack London: Captain Cook--which was historically untrue, and, besides, our
ancestors hadn't lived in Hawaii.
"I was three years at Mills Seminary, with trips home, of course,
and two years in New York; and then Dad went smash in a sugar
plantation on Maui. The report of the engineers had not been
right. Then Dad had built a railroad that was called 'Lackland's
Folly,'--it will pay ultimately, though. But it contributed to the
smash. The Pelaulau Ditch was the finishing blow. And nothing
would have happened anyway, if it hadn't been for that big money
panic in Wall Street. Dear good Dad! He never let me know. But I
read about the crash in a newspaper, and hurried home. It was
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: Commonplace enough the hints are,--jocose sometimes, done up in
rhyme.
Doctor May a month after the night I have told you of, was
reading to his wife at breakfast from this fourth column of the
morning-paper: an unusual thing,--these police-reports not
being, in general, choice reading for ladies; but it was only
one item he read.
"Oh, my dear! You remember that man I told you of, that we saw
at Kirby's mill?--that was arrested for robbing Mitchell? Here
he is; just listen:--'Circuit Court. Judge Day. Hugh Wolfe,
operative in Kirby & John's Loudon Mills. Charge, grand
Life in the Iron-Mills |
