| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy: like fruit from melon plants in a frame.
It was, however, not with those who sat in the settle that
Eustacia was concerned. A face showed itself with marked
distinctness against the dark-tanned wood of the upper part.
The owner, who was leaning against the settle's outer end,
was Clement Yeobright, or Clym, as he was called here;
she knew it could be nobody else. The spectacle constituted
an area of two feet in Rembrandt's intensest manner.
A strange power in the lounger's appearance lay in
the fact that, though his whole figure was visible,
the observer's eye was only aware of his face.
Return of the Native |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber: of dishes. But I don't think she's got a parlor lamp. At
least I haven't sold one. Why don't you get her that? If
she doesn't like it she can change it. Now there's that
blue one with the pink roses."
And Minnie's aunt would end by buying the lamp.
Fanny learned that the mill girls liked the bright-colored
and expensive wares, and why; she learned that the woman
with the "fascinator" (tragic misnomer!) over her head
wanted the finest sled for her boy. She learned to keep her
temper. She learned to suggest without seeming to suggest.
She learned to do surprisingly well all those things that
Fanny Herself |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: church-bells' tolling passed before him like a panorama, while
the sharp struggle went on within. This money! He took it out,
and looked at it. If he gave it back, what then? He was going
to be cool about it.
People going by to church saw only a sickly mill-boy watching
them quietly at the alley's mouth. They did not know that he
was mad, or they would not have gone by so quietly: mad with
hunger; stretching out his hands to the world, that had given so
much to them, for leave to live the life God meant him to live.
His soul within him was smothering to death; he wanted so much,
thought so much, and knew--nothing. There was nothing of which
Life in the Iron-Mills |
