| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson: considerable burn, they were more widely set, and only watched
the fords and stepping-stones.
I took but one look at them, and ducked again into my place. It
was strange indeed to see this valley, which had lain so solitary
in the hour of dawn, bristling with arms and dotted with the red
coats and breeches.
"Ye see," said Alan, "this was what I was afraid of, Davie: that
they would watch the burn-side. They began to come in about two
hours ago, and, man! but ye're a grand hand at the sleeping!
We're in a narrow place. If they get up the sides of the hill,
they could easy spy us with a glass; but if they'll only keep in
Kidnapped |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Adieu by Honore de Balzac: Human will came with its full electric torrent, and vivified the body
from which it had been driven.
"Stephanie!" cried the colonel.
"Oh! it is Philippe," said the poor countess.
She threw herself into the trembling arms that the colonel held out to
her, and the clasp of the lovers frightened the spectators. Stephanie
burst into tears. Suddenly her tears stopped, she stiffened as though
the lightning had touched her, and said in a feeble voice,--
"Adieu, Philippe; I love thee, adieu!"
"Oh! she is dead," cried the colonel, opening his arms.
The old doctor received the inanimate body of his niece, kissed it as
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: the sentinels with his rifle at his shoulder, a light cloud
of blue smoke rising from the muzzle. The man in the water
saw the eye of the man on the bridge gazing into his own
through the sights of the rifle. He observed that it was a
gray eye and remembered having read that gray eyes were
keenest, and that all famous marksmen had them.
Nevertheless, this one had missed.
A counter-swirl had caught Fahrquhar and turned him half
round; he was again looking at the forest on the bank
opposite the fort. The sound of a clear, high voice in a
monotonous singsong now rang out behind him and came across
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
