| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: way ahead. Today brought it alarmingly close to hand.
He had not heretofore regarded the weekly assemblage
for prayer and song as a thing calling for preparation,
or for any preliminary thought. Now on this Thursday
morning he went to his desk after breakfast, which was
a sign that he wanted the room to himself, quite as
if he had the task of a weighty sermon before him.
He sat at the desk all the forenoon, doing no writing,
it is true, but remembering every once in a while,
when his mind turned aside from the book in his hands,
that there was that prayer-meeting in the evening.
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber: of its success, I suppose. It isn't only a column written
about New York for a New York paper. It's about everything,
for anybody. It's the humanest stuff. And he isn't afraid
of anything. New York's crazy about him. They say he's
getting a salary you wouldn't believe. I'm a tongue-tied
old fool when I'm with him, but then, he likes to talk about
you, mostly, so it doesn't matter."
Fanny turned swiftly from the dressing-table, where she was
taking the pins out of her vigorous, abundant hair.
"What kind of thing does he say about me, Ellen girl. H'm?
What kind of thing?"
Fanny Herself |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: swan's throat, was white and exquisitely round. His blue eyes, bright
and liquid, mirrored the sky. His features and the mould of his brow
were refined and delicate enough to enchant a painter. The bloom of
beauty, which in a woman's face causes men such indescribable delight,
the exquisite purity of outline, the halo of light that bathes the
features we love, were here combined with a masculine complexion, and
with strength as yet but half developed, in the most enchanting
contrast. His was one of those melodious countenances which even when
silent speak and attract us. And yet, on marking it attentively, the
incipient blight might have been detected which comes of a great
thought or a passion, the faint yellow tinge that made him seem like a
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