| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: What I was doing was what he had earnestly hoped and directly asked of me,
and that I COULD, after all, do it proved even a greater joy than I
had expected. I daresay I fancied myself, in short, a remarkable young
woman and took comfort in the faith that this would more publicly appear.
Well, I needed to be remarkable to offer a front to the remarkable things
that presently gave their first sign.
It was plump, one afternoon, in the middle of my very hour:
the children were tucked away, and I had come out for my stroll.
One of the thoughts that, as I don't in the least shrink now
from noting, used to be with me in these wanderings was that it
would be as charming as a charming story suddenly to meet someone.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner: She held her breath. Not a cony in all the rocks was so still.
"They can never find me here," she said; and she knelt, and listened to
every word they said. She could hear it all.
"You may have all the money," said the Bushman; "but I want the cask of
brandy. I will set the roof alight in six places, for a Dutchman burnt my
mother once alive in a hut, with three children."
"You are sure there is no one else on the farm?" said the navvy.
"No, I have told you till I am tired," said Dirk; "The two Kaffirs have
gone with the son to town; and the maids have gone to a dance; there is
only the old man and the two women left."
"But suppose," said the navvy, "he should have the gun at his bedside, and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: a spring burst forth, a new fountain of the Muses, to celebrate
this last instant of time. Where he lives no fugitive slave laws
are passed. Who has not betrayed his master many times since last
he heard that note?
The merit of this bird's strain is in its freedom from all
plaintiveness. The singer can easily move us to tears or to
laughter, but where is he who can excite in us a pure morning
joy? When, in doleful dumps, breaking the awful stillness of our
wooden sidewalk on a Sunday, or, perchance, a watcher in the
house of mourning, I hear a cockerel crow far or near, I think to
myself, "There is one of us well, at any rate,"--and with a
Walking |
