| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: death--"
"No; I promised nothing. He died too suddenly to make me." Her
voice sank to a whisper. "I was free--perfectly free--or I
thought I was till I tried."
"Till you tried?"
"To disobey him--to sell the picture. Then I found it was
impossible. I tried again and again; but he was always in the
room with me."
She glanced over her shoulder as though she had heard a step; and
to Wyant, too, for a moment, the room seemed full of a third
presence.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: diligently instructed in the Bible, by the care of a faithful and
pious mistress; yet, would it not try the faith of the firmest
Christian, to find themselves abandoned, apparently, of God, in
the grasp of ruthless violence? How much more must it shake the
faith of Christ's poor little ones, weak in knowledge and tender
in years!
The boat moved on,--freighted with its weight of sorrow,--up the
red, muddy, turbid current, through the abrupt tortuous windings
of the Red river; and sad eyes gazed wearily on the steep red-clay
banks, as they glided by in dreary sameness. At last the boat
stopped at a small town, and Legree, with his party, disembarked.
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: Henry VIII. in England, which was the direct consequence of the
invention of printing. Adversaries to the Reformation, they meant to
stifle it, power being in their hands. But their opponent, Calvin,
though less famous than Luther, was far the stronger of the two.
Calvin saw government where Luther saw dogma only. While the stout
beer-drinker and amorous German fought with the devil and flung an
inkbottle at his head, the man from Picardy, a sickly celibate, made
plans of campaign, directed battles, armed princes, and roused whole
peoples by sowing republican doctrines in the hearts of the burghers--
recouping his continual defeats in the field by fresh progress in the
mind of the nations.
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