| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery: Anne Shirley, who threw herself into the undertaking heart and
soul, hampered as she was by Marilla's disapproval. Marilla
thought it all rank foolishness.
"It's just filling your heads up with nonsense and taking time
that ought to be put on your lessons," she grumbled. "I don't
approve of children's getting up concerts and racing about to
practices. It makes them vain and forward and fond of gadding."
"But think of the worthy object," pleaded Anne. "A flag will
cultivate a spirit of patriotism, Marilla."
"Fudge! There's precious little patriotism in the thoughts of any
of you. All you want is a good time."
Anne of Green Gables |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: been within four thousand miles of; or, expressing it less
sordidly, he had yielded to the humour of seeing again his house on
the jolly corner, as he usually, and quite fondly, described it -
the one in which he had first seen the light, in which various
members of his family had lived and had died, in which the holidays
of his overschooled boyhood had been passed and the few social
flowers of his chilled adolescence gathered, and which, alienated
then for so long a period, had, through the successive deaths of
his two brothers and the termination of old arrangements, come
wholly into his hands. He was the owner of another, not quite so
"good" - the jolly corner having been, from far back, superlatively
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Mansion by Henry van Dyke: near at hand, as if it felt the rising value of the land on which
it stood.
John Weightman was like the house into which he had built himself
thirty years ago, and in which his ideals and ambitions were
incrusted.
He was a self-made man. But in making himself he had chosen a
highly esteemed pattern and worked according to the approved
rules.
There was nothing irregular, questionable, flamboyant about him.
He was solid, correct, and justly successful.
His minor tastes, of course, had been carefully kept up to date.
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