| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: of color of summer-time, as vividly as if they had been
painted on a canvas. Or no, the picture he stared at
was not on canvas, but on the glossy, varnished panel
of a luxurious sleeping-car. He shook his head angrily and
blinked his eyes again and again, to prevent their seeing,
seated together in the open window above this panel,
the two people he knew were there, gloved and habited
for the night's journey, waiting for the train to start.
"Very much to my surprise," he found himself saying to Alice,
watching her nervously as she laid the supper-table, "I
find I must go to Albany tonight. That is, it isn't
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The War in the Air by H. G. Wells: of life. It's just as though I had woke up to it all for the
first time. Every night since we were at New York I've dreamt of
it.... And it's always been so--it's the way of life. People are
torn away from the people they care for; homes are smashed,
creatures full of life, and memories, and little peculiar gifts
are scalded and smashed, and torn to pieces, and starved, and
spoilt. London! Berlin! San Francisco! Think of all the human
histories we ended in New York!... And the others go on again as
though such things weren't possible. As I went on! Like animals!
Just like animals."
He said nothing for a long time, and then he dropped out, "The
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Helen of Troy And Other Poems by Sara Teasdale: Where thro' the long hot months the dust had lain.
Was it not lonely when across the floor
No step was heard, no sudden song that bore
My whole heart upward with a joyous pain?
Were not the pictures and the volumes fain
To have me with them always as before?
But Giorgione's Venus did not deign
To lift her lids, nor did the subtle smile
Of Mona Lisa deepen. Madeleine
Still wept against the glory of her hair,
Nor did the lovers part their lips the while,
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