| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: with much caution; the old couple treated him with evident distrust.
But his attention was soon attracted by the little English deaf-mute,
in whom his discernment, though young as yet, enabled him to recognize
a girl of African, or at least of Sicilian, origin. The child had the
golden-brown color of a Havana cigar, eyes of fire, Armenian eyelids
with lashes of very un-British length, hair blacker than black; and
under this almost olive skin, sinews of extraordinary strength and
feverish alertness. She looked at Rodolphe with amazing curiosity and
effrontery, watching his every movement.
"To whom does that little Moresco belong?" he asked worthy Madame
Bergmann.
Albert Savarus |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy: XX
The season developed and matured. Another year's
instalment of flowers, leaves, nightingales, thrushes,
finches, and such ephemeral creatures, took up their
positions where only a year ago others had stood in
their place when these were nothing more than germs and
inorganic particles. Rays from the sunrise drew forth
the buds and stretched them into long stalks, lifted up
sap in noiseless streams, opened petals, and sucked out
scents in invisible jets and breathings.
Dairyman Crick's household of maids and men lived on
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: It was eleven o'clock when I at last took my bag and some blankets
and started for the barn with the boys. Their mother came to the door
with us, and we tarried for a moment to look out at the white
slope of the corral and the two ponds asleep in the moonlight,
and the long sweep of the pasture under the star-sprinkled sky.
The boys told me to choose my own place in the haymow,
and I lay down before a big window, left open in warm weather,
that looked out into the stars. Ambrosch and Leo cuddled up in a
hay-cave, back under the eaves, and lay giggling and whispering.
They tickled each other and tossed and tumbled in the hay;
and then, all at once, as if they had been shot, they were still.
My Antonia |
