| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: He gathered her in his arms, and put his cold lips to hers,
without a word; then turned, and left her slowly.
She made no sign, shed no tear, as she stood, watching him go.
It was all over: she had willed it, herself, and yet--he could
not go! God would not suffer it! Oh, he could not leave her,--he
could not!--He went down the hill, slowly. If it were a trial of
life and death for her, did he know or care?--He did not look
back. What if he did not? his heart was true; he suffered in
going; even now he walked wearily. God forgive her, if she had
wronged him!--What did it matter, if he were hard in this life,
and it hurt her a little? It would come right,--beyond, some
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: study of vice, as artists soothe the immediate disappointment of their
hopes by the expectation of future fame. Both regarded the war in its
results, not its action; they simply considered those who died for
glory fools. Chance had made soldiers of them; whereas their natural
proclivities would have seated them at the green table of a congress.
Nature had poured Montefiore into the mould of a Rizzio, and Diard
into that of a diplomatist. Both were endowed with that nervous,
feverish, half-feminine organization, which is equally strong for good
or evil, and from which may emanate, according to the impulse of these
singular temperaments, a crime or a generous action, a noble deed or a
base one. The fate of such natures depends at any moment on the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: thought I'd bring it along and sniff it once in a while, and make
believe it's the country, up there on the roof."
Half-way up the perilous little flight of stairs that led to
the roof, Charlie, the janitor, turned to gaze down at Mary Louise,
who was just behind, and keeping fearfully out of the way of
Charlie's heels.
"Wimmin," observed Charlie, the janitor, "is nothin' but
little girls in long skirts, and their hair done up."
"I know it," giggled Mary Louise, and sprang up on the roof,
looking, with her towel-swathed head, like a lady Aladdin leaping
from her underground grotto.
Buttered Side Down |
