| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from In the Cage by Henry James: small suppressed start of surprise at so correct an assumption;
even to an attempt the next minute at a fresh air of detachment.
"How much, with the answer?" The calculation was not abstruse, but
our intense observer required a moment more to make it, and this
gave her ladyship time for a second thought. "Oh just wait!" The
white begemmed hand bared to write rose in sudden nervousness to
the side of the wonderful face which, with eyes of anxiety for the
paper on the counter, she brought closer to the bars of the cage.
"I think I must alter a word!" On this she recovered her telegram
and looked over it again; but she had a new, an obvious trouble,
and studied it without deciding and with much of the effect of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber: discreetly at her elbow.
Eva turned sharply and encountered her own saleswoman returning
hat-laden. "Not today," she gasped. "I'm feeling ill.
Suddenly." And almost ran from the room.
That evening she told Stell, relating her news in that telephone
pidgin English devised by every family of married sisters as
protection against the neighbors. Translated, it ran thus:
"He looked straight at me. My dear, I thought I'd die! But at
least he had sense enough not to speak. She was one of those
limp, willowy creatures with the greediest eyes that she tried to
keep softened to a baby stare, and couldn't, she was so crazy to
One Basket |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lemorne Versus Huell by Elizabeth Drew Stoddard: lived from "hand to mouth." Every thing about her wore a hereditary
air; for she lived in my grandfather's house, and it was the same
as in his day. If I was at home when these contrasts occurred to me
I should have felt angry; as it was, I felt them as in a dream--the
china, the silver, the old furniture, and the excellent fare
soothed me.
In the middle of the day Aunt Eliza came down stairs, and after
she had received a visit from her doctor, decided to go to Newport
on Saturday. It was Wednesday; and I could, if I chose, make any
addition to my wardrobe. I had none to make, I informed her. What
were my dresses?--had I a black silk? she asked. I had no black
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