| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: into that chiar'oscuro of sensation where every half-tone has its
value.
As a promoter of this pleasure no one he had known was comparable
to Mrs. Vervain. He had taught a good many women not to betray
their feelings, but he had never before had such fine material to
work in. She had been surprisingly crude when he first knew her;
capable of making the most awkward inferences, of plunging
through thin ice, of recklessly undressing her emotions; but she
had acquired, under the discipline of his reticences and
evasions, a skill almost equal to his own, and perhaps more
remarkable in that it involved keeping time with any tune he
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: were so taken up with looking to see who was coming, and
what shop they would go to, that I found means to slip a paper
of lace into my pocket and come clear off with it; so the
lady-milliner paid dear enough for her gaping after the queen.
I went off from the shop, as if driven along by the throng, and
mingling myself with the crowd, went out at the other door
of the Exchange, and so got away before they missed their
lace; and because I would not be followed, I called a coach
and shut myself up in it. I had scarce shut the coach doors up,
but I saw the milliner's maid and five or six more come
running out into the street, and crying out as if they were
Moll Flanders |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy: upon the pony's back, her head over its tail, her feet
against its shoulders, and her eyes to the sky. The
rapidity of her glide into this position was that of a
kingfisher -- its noiselessness that of a hawk. Gabriel's
eyes had scarcely been able to follow her. The tall lank
pony seemed used to such doings, and ambled
along unconcerned. Thus she passed under the level boughs.
The performer seemed quite at home anywhere
between a horse's head and its tail, and the necessity
for this abnormal attitude having ceased with the
passage of the plantation, she began to adopt another,
Far From the Madding Crowd |
