| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: Liddy and I had done that other night.
The window was the same grayish rectangle in the blackness as
before. A few feet away in the hall was the spot where the body
of Arnold Armstrong had been found. I was a bit nervous, and I
put my hand on Halsey's sleeve. Suddenly, from the top of the
staircase above us came the sound of a cautious footstep. At
first I was not sure, but Halsey's attitude told me he had heard
and was listening. The step, slow, measured, infinitely
cautious, was nearer now. Halsey tried to loosen my fingers, but
I was in a paralysis of fright.
The swish of a body against the curving rail, as if for guidance,
The Circular Staircase |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: He thought it a very degrading alliance; and Lady Russell, though with
more tempered and pardonable pride, received it as a most unfortunate one.
Anne Elliot, with all her claims of birth, beauty, and mind,
to throw herself away at nineteen; involve herself at nineteen
in an engagement with a young man, who had nothing but himself
to recommend him, and no hopes of attaining affluence, but in the chances
of a most uncertain profession, and no connexions to secure
even his farther rise in the profession, would be, indeed, a throwing away,
which she grieved to think of! Anne Elliot, so young; known to so few,
to be snatched off by a stranger without alliance or fortune;
or rather sunk by him into a state of most wearing, anxious,
Persuasion |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lin McLean by Owen Wister: now, as substitute for what was gone, was the brag look of assertion that
it was still all there. Many stranded travellers knocked at Jessamine's
door, and now, as always, she offered the hospitalities of her neat
abode, the only room in Separ fit for a woman. As she spoke, and the
guest surveyed and listened, the door blew shut with a crash.
Outside, in a shed, Billy had placed the wagon between himself and his
father.
"How you have grown!" the man was saying; and he smiled. "Come, shake
hands. I did not think to see you here."
"Dare you to touch me!" Billy screamed. "No, I'll never come with you.
Lin says I needn't to."
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