| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: the end; and it appeared to her that the soldier who was on duty
at her door did not march with the same step, and seemed to
listen. For the moment she wished nothing better. She arose,
came to the table, ate but little, and drank only water.
An hour after, her table was cleared; but Milady remarked that
this time Felton did not accompany the soldiers. He feared,
then, to see her too often.
She turned toward the wall to smile--for there was in this smile
such an expression of triumph that this smile alone would have
betrayed her.
She allowed, therefore, half an hour to pass away; and as at that
The Three Musketeers |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber: after the fashion of the early 'Sixties, her arms and shoulders
bare, a pink-slip with shoulder-straps in lieu of a bodice,
and--he passed a bewildered hand over his eyes a skirt that
billowed and flared and flounced and spread in a great, graceful
circle--a skirt strangely light for all its fulness--a skirt
like, and yet, somehow, unlike those garments seen in ancient
copies of Godey's Lady Book.
"That can't be--you don't mean--what--what IS it?" stammered
Buck, dismayed.
Emma, her arms curved above her head like a ballet-dancer's,
pirouetted, curtsied very low so that the skirt spread all about
Emma McChesney & Co. |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: Heaven bless the mark! I want breath and time to discuss this
banquet as it deserves, and am too eager to get on with my story.
Happily, Ichabod Crane was not in so great a hurry as his
historian, but did ample justice to every dainty.
He was a kind and thankful creature, whose heart dilated in
proportion as his skin was filled with good cheer, and whose
spirits rose with eating, as some men's do with drink. He could
not help, too, rolling his large eyes round him as he ate, and
chuckling with the possibility that he might one day be lord of
all this scene of almost unimaginable luxury and splendor. Then,
he thought, how soon he 'd turn his back upon the old
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
