| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: "Forsaking all others, so long as we both shall live," he said,
unsteadily.
"So long as we both shall live," she repeated.
However she had to take it off later, for Mrs. Wheeler, it developed,
had very pronounced ideas of engagement rings. They were put on the
day the notices were sent to the newspapers, and not before. So
Elizabeth wore her ring around her neck on a white ribbon, inside
her camisole, until such time as her father would consent to announce
that he was about to lose her.
Thus Elizabeth found her engagement full of unexpected turns and
twists, and nothing precisely as she had expected. But she accepted
The Breaking Point |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson: present but he seemed to catch and make a note of it. Brackenbury
began to wonder if this were indeed a gambling hell: it had so
much the air of a private inquisition. He followed Mr. Morris in
all his movements; and although the man had a ready smile, he
seemed to perceive, as it were under a mask, a haggard, careworn,
and preoccupied spirit. The fellows around him laughed and made
their game; but Brackenbury had lost interest in the guests.
"This Morris," thought he, "is no idler in the room. Some deep
purpose inspires him; let it be mine to fathom it."
Now and then Mr. Morris would call one of his visitors aside; and
after a brief colloquy in an ante-room, he would return alone, and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: skin; the veins and muscles were perfectly visible. She must have been
very handsome; but at this moment I was startled into an indescribable
emotion at the sight. Never, said those who wrapped her in her shroud,
had any living creature been so emaciated and lived. In short, it was
awful to behold! Sickness so consumed that woman, that she was no more
than a phantom. Her lips, which were pale violet, seemed to me not to
move when she spoke to me.
" 'Though my profession has familiarized me with such spectacles, by
calling me not infrequently to the bedside of the dying to record
their last wishes, I confess that families in tears and the agonies I
have seen were as nothing in comparison with this lonely and silent
La Grande Breteche |
