| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: you remember.]
That sounds like a cock-and-bull-story, - said the young fellow
whom they call John. I abstained from making Hamlet's remark to
Horatio, and continued.
Not long since, the church-wardens were repairing and beautifying
an old Saxon church in a certain English village, and among other
things thought the doors should be attended to. One of them
particularly, the front-door, looked very badly, crusted, as it
were, and as if it would be all the better for scraping. There
happened to be a microscopist in the village who had heard the old
pirate story, and he took it into his head to examine the crust on
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: not the creations of his fancy, but the beings themselves who visit him from
the regions of a remote world. This faith gives a solemnity to his reveries
that render them to me almost as imposing and interesting as truth.
Our conversations are not always confined to his own history and misfortunes.
On every point of general literature he displays unbounded knowledge
and a quick and piercing apprehension. His eloquence is forcible and touching;
nor can I hear him, when he relates a pathetic incident or endeavours to move
the passions of pity or love, without tears. What a glorious creature must
he have been in the days of his prosperity, when he is thus noble and godlike
in ruin! He seems to feel his own worth and the greatness of his fall.
"When younger," said he, "I believed myself destined for some
Frankenstein |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: angles with his right foot, his gaze fixed on first base in a
cunning effort to deceive the man at bat, in that favorite attitude
of pitchers just before they get ready to swing their left leg and
h'ist one over.
The second time that Rudie called, Ma Keller said:
"Ivy, I don't like that ball player coming here to see you.
The neighbors'll talk."
The third time Rudie called, Pa Keller said: "What's that guy
doing here again?"
The fourth time Rudie called, Pa Keller and Ma Keller said, in
unison: "This thing has got to stop."
Buttered Side Down |
