| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: attempts to dissuade her from the step.'
'You did attempt it? Then, at least, you will have the
satisfaction of knowing that it is no fault of yours, if any harm
should come of it. As for Mrs. Murray, I don't know how she can
justify her conduct: if I had sufficient acquaintance with her,
I'd ask her.'
'It seems unnatural: but some people think rank and wealth the
chief good; and, if they can secure that for their children, they
think they have done their duty.'
'True: but is it not strange that persons of experience, who have
been married themselves, should judge so falsely?' Matilda now
Agnes Grey |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Moon-Face and Other Stories by Jack London: "Eh, old boy! That's merely an object-lesson--certain elements, in themselves
opaque, yet so compounded as to give a resultant body which is transparent.
But that is a matter of inorganic chemistry, you say. Very true. But I dare to
assert, standing here on my two feet, that in the organic I can duplicate
whatever occurs in the inorganic.
"Here!" He held a test-tube between me and the light, and I noted the cloudy
or muddy liquid it contained. He emptied the contents of another test-tube
into it, and almost instantly it became clear and sparkling.
"Or here!" With quick, nervous movements among his array of test-tubes, he
turned a white solution to a wine color, and a light yellow solution to a dark
brown. He dropped a piece of litmus paper into an acid, when it changed
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Options by O. Henry: "Then we had more talk; and at last a kind of proud, serious look came
on her face, and she turned and pointed a finger at the big house.
"'The Allyns,' says she, 'have lived in Elmcroft for a hundred years.
We are a proud family. Look at that mansion. It has fifty rooms.
See the pillars and porches and balconies. The ceilings in the
reception-rooms and the ball-room are twenty-eight feet high. My
father is a lineal descendant of belted earls.'
"'I belted one of 'em once in the Duquesne Hotel, in Pittsburgh,' says
I, 'and he didn't offer to resent it. He was there dividing his
attentions between Monongahela whiskey and heiresses, and he got
fresh.'
Options |
