| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey: In the cloudy, threatening, waning summer days shadows lengthened
down the sage-slope, and Jane Withersteen likened them to the
shadows gathering and closing in around her life.
Mrs. Larkin died, and little Fay was left an orphan with no known
relative. Jane's love redoubled. It was the saving brightness of
a darkening hour. Fay turned now to Jane in childish worship. And
Jane at last found full expression for the mother-longing in her
heart. Upon Lassiter, too, Mrs. Larkin's death had some subtle
reaction. Before, he had often, without explanation, advised Jane
to send Fay back to any Gentile family that would take her in.
Passionately and reproachfully and wonderingly Jane had refused
Riders of the Purple Sage |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: produce that brought in any money was the cheese, which most of them
carried in small baskets to Grenoble or its outskirts. The richer or
the more energetic among them sowed buckwheat for home consumption;
sometimes they raised a crop of barley or oats, but wheat was unknown.
The only trader in the place was the mayor, who owned a sawmill and
bought up timber at a low price to sell again. In the absence of
roads, his tree trunks had to be transported during the summer season;
each log was dragged along one at a time, and with no small
difficulty, by means of a chain attached to a halter about his horse's
neck, and an iron hook at the farther end of the chain, which was
driven into the wood. Any one who went to Grenoble, whether on
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: drawn upon herself some virulent attack? The blue veins of her temples
throbbed; she shed no tears, but the color of her eyes faded. Then she
looked down, that she might not see her pain reflected on my face, her
feelings guessed, her soul wooed by my soul; above all, not see the
sympathy of young love, ready like a faithful dog to spring at the
throat of whoever threatened his mistress, without regard to the
assailant's strength or quality. At such cruel moments the count's air
of superiority was supreme. He thought he had triumphed over his wife,
and he pursued her with a hail of phrases which repeated the one idea,
and were like the blows of an axe which fell with unvarying sound.
"Always the same?" I said, when the count left us to follow the
The Lily of the Valley |
