| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain: or lean on the railing and watch the schools of fishes
darting about in the clear water, or gaze out over the lake
at the stately border of snow-hooded mountains peaks.
Little pleasure steamers, black with people, are coming
and going all the time; and everywhere one sees young
girls and young men paddling about in fanciful rowboats,
or skimming along by the help of sails when there is any wind.
The front rooms of the hotels have little railed balconies,
where one may take his private luncheon in calm,
cool comfort and look down upon this busy and pretty
scene and enjoy it without having to do any of the work
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Helen of Troy And Other Poems by Sara Teasdale: Page.
My lord has far to ride before the dawn!
K. (To himself.)
Why should I tarry?
(To the page.)
Bring my horse and shield!
(He descends. As the noise of his footfall on the stairs dies away,
the lady gropes toward the stairway, then turns suddenly, and going to
the ledge where they have sat, she throws herself over the parapet.)
CURTAIN.
[End of Helen of Troy And Other Poems.]
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: Its novelty made it the more irritating. He was amazed,
disgusted that conditions so foreign to all his purposes, so hatefully
disconnected with the objects he cared to occupy himself with,
should have lain in ambush and clutched him when he was unaware.
And there was not only the actual debt; there was the certainty
that in his present position he must go on deepening it.
Two furnishing tradesmen at Brassing, whose bills had been incurred
before his marriage, and whom uncalculated current expenses had
ever since prevented him from paying, had repeatedly sent him
unpleasant letters which had forced themselves on his attention.
This could hardly have been more galling to any disposition than
Middlemarch |
