| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The King of the Golden River by John Ruskin: Gluck, "my brothers never ask anybody to dinner. I'm sure, when
they've got such a nice piece of mutton as this, and nobody else
has got so much as a piece of dry bread, it would do their hearts
good to have somebody to eat it with them."
Just as he spoke there came a double knock at the house door,
yet heavy and dull, as though the knocker had been tied up--more
like a puff than a knock.
"It must be the wind," said Gluck; "nobody else would
venture to knock double knocks at our door."
No, it wasn't the wind; there it came again very hard, and,
what was particularly astounding, the knocker seemed to be in a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: he started up listening, and I put my face deep in the pillow.
"I'm afeared! I'm afeared! Sin has quit being bitter in my
belly."
"Courage, my good man." The Doctor was out of bed with his lamp
again, and the door shut behind him. Between them they made it
long this time. I saw the window become gray; then the corners of
the furniture grow visible; and outside, the dry chorus of the
blackbirds began to fill the dawn. To these the sounds of
chickens and impatient hoofs in the stable were added, and some
cow wandered by loudly calling for her calf. Next, some one
whistling passed near and grew distant. But although the cold hue
The Virginian |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Voice of the City by O. Henry: the poor they brought -- another day.
All over the city the cries were starting up, keen
and sonorous, heralding the chances that the slip-
ping of one cogwheel in the machinery of time had
made; apportioning to the sleepers while they lay
at the mercy of fate, the vengeance, profit, grief,
reward and doom that the new figure in the calen-
dar had brought them. Shrill and yet plaintive
were the cries, as if the young voices grieved that so
much evil and so little good was in their irresponsible
hands. Thus echoed in the streets of the helpless
The Voice of the City |
