| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: of her.
"I can bring your companion," I suggested, without enthusiasm. But
the young woman shook her head.
"She is not hungry," she objected, "and she is very - well, I know
she wouldn't come. Do you suppose we could make it if we run?"
"I haven't any idea," I said cheerfully. "Any old train would be
better than this one, if it does leave us behind."
"Yes. Any train would be better than this one," she repeated
gravely. I found myself watching her changing expression. I had
spoken two dozen words to her and already I felt that I knew the
lights and shades in her voice, - I, who had always known how a
The Man in Lower Ten |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum: prowled around the hole in which I lived and sometimes I didn't dare
stir out for days at a time. Oh, how happy and contented I was then!
I was a real rabbit, as nature made me--wild and free!--and I even
enjoyed listening to the startled throbbing of my own heart!"
"I've often thought," said Dorothy, who was busily eating, "that it
would be fun to be a rabbit."
"It IS fun--when you're the genuine article," agreed his Majesty.
"But look at me now! I live in a marble palace instead of a hole in
the ground. I have all I want to eat, without the joy of hunting for
it. Every day I must dress in fine clothes and wear that horrible
crown till it makes my head ache. Rabbits come to me with all sorts
The Emerald City of Oz |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: feel that any careless, good-natured putting away of his deliberate and
definitely tendered apology would seem to him a "slight" on my part. His
punctilious value for certain observances between man and man reached me
suddenly and deeply, and took me far from the familiarity which breeds
contempt.
"Why, John Mayrant," I said, "you could never offend me unless I thought
that you wished to, and how should I possibly think that?"
"Thank you," he replied very simply.
I rang the bell a second time. "If we can get into the house," I
suggested, "won't you stop and dine with me?"
He was going to accept. "I shall be--" he had begun, in tones of
gratification, when in one instant his face was stricken with complete
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