| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James: I judged that she had imbibed this invertebrate dialect
from the natural way the names of things and people--
mostly purely local--rose to her lips. If she knew little
of what they represented she knew still less of anything else.
Her aunt had drawn in--her failing interest in the table mats
and lampshades was a sign of that--and she had not been able
to mingle in society or to entertain it alone; so that the matter
of her reminiscences struck one as an old world altogether.
If she had not been so decent her references would have seemed
to carry one back to the queer rococo Venice of Casanova.
I found myself falling into the error of thinking of her too
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: stop, "having kept covenant by meeting thee here, it is my
purpose now to return whence I came. I have scruples touching the
matter thou wot'st of."
"Sayest thou so?" replied he of the serpent, smiling apart. "Let
us walk on, nevertheless, reasoning as we go; and if I convince
thee not thou shalt turn back. We are but a little way in the
forest yet."
"Too far! too far!" exclaimed the goodman, unconsciously resuming
his walk. "My father never went into the woods on such an errand,
nor his father before him. We have been a race of honest men and
good Christians since the days of the martyrs; and shall I be the
Mosses From An Old Manse |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Grimm's Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm: for she was forced to do what the wicked witch commanded.
And now the best food was cooked for poor Hansel, but Gretel got
nothing but crab-shells. Every morning the woman crept to the little
stable, and cried: 'Hansel, stretch out your finger that I may feel if
you will soon be fat.' Hansel, however, stretched out a little bone to
her, and the old woman, who had dim eyes, could not see it, and
thought it was Hansel's finger, and was astonished that there was no
way of fattening him. When four weeks had gone by, and Hansel still
remained thin, she was seized with impatience and would not wait any
longer. 'Now, then, Gretel,' she cried to the girl, 'stir yourself,
and bring some water. Let Hansel be fat or lean, tomorrow I will kill
Grimm's Fairy Tales |
