| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: entertainment of the audience. On another occasion she took all
her girls to a private box at a Chinese circus, where men and
women acrobats and horseback riders performed in a ring not
unlike that of our own circus riders. In this circus small-footed
women rode horseback as well as the women in our own circus, and
one woman with bound feet lay down on her back, balanced a
cart-wheel, weighing at least a hundred pounds, on her feet,
whirling it rapidly all the time, and then after it stopped she
continued to hold it while two women and a child climbed on top.
The Princess was determined to allow her girls to have all the
advantages the city afforded.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: through the magical light of the late afternoon.
All those fall afternoons were the same, but I never got used to them.
As far as we could see, the miles of copper-red grass were
drenched in sunlight that was stronger and fiercer than at any
other time of the day. The blond cornfields were red gold,
the haystacks turned rosy and threw long shadows. The whole prairie
was like the bush that burned with fire and was not consumed.
That hour always had the exultation of victory, of triumphant ending,
like a hero's death--heroes who died young and gloriously.
It was a sudden transfiguration, a lifting-up of day.
How many an afternoon Antonia and I have trailed along the prairie
My Antonia |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Europeans by Henry James: she asked at last.
"As soon as you will allow her--to-morrow. She is very impatient,"
answered Felix, who wished to be agreeable.
"To-morrow, yes," said Gertrude. She wished to ask more about her;
but she hardly knew what could be predicated of a Baroness Munster.
"Is she--is she--married?"
Felix had finished his cake and wine; he got up, fixing upon the young
girl his bright, expressive eyes. "She is married to a German prince--
Prince Adolf, of Silberstadt-Schreckenstein. He is not the reigning prince;
he is a younger brother."
Gertrude gazed at her informant; her lips were slightly parted.
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