| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Confidence by Henry James: to violent laughter.
"My dear fellow," he exclaimed, "you have, after all, your little oddities."
Singularly enough, however, Gordon Wright failed to appear flattered
by this concession.
"I did n't send for you to laugh at me," he said.
"Ah, but I have n't travelled three hundred miles to cry!
Seriously, solemnly, then, it is one of these young ladies
that has put marriage into your head?"
"Not at all. I had it in my head."
"Having a desire to marry, you proceeded to fall in love."
"I am not in love!" said Gordon Wright, with some energy.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Roads of Destiny by O. Henry: conversation had that most difficult kind of ease--the kind that still
preserves punctilio. The planter himself seemed to be the dynamo that
generated the larger portion of the gaiety and wit. The younger ones
at the board found it more than difficult to turn back on him his guns
of raillery and banter. It is true, the young men attempted to storm
his works repeatedly, incited by the hope of gaining the approbation
of their fair companions; but even when they sped a well-aimed shaft,
the planter forced them to feel defeat by the tremendous discomfiting
thunder of the laughter with which he accompanied his retorts. At the
head of the table, serene, matronly, benevolent, reigned the mistress
of the house, placing here and there the right smile, the right word,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber: a four months' tour of South America. Against the earnest
protests of her business partner, T. A. Buck, president of the
Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company, she had invaded the southern
continent and left it abloom with Featherlooms from the Plata to
the Canal.
Success was no stranger to Mrs. McChesney. This last business
victory had not turned her head. But it had come perilously near
to tilting that extraordinarily well-balanced part. A certain
light in her eyes, a certain set of her chin, an added briskness
of bearing, a cocky slant of the eyebrow revealed the fact that,
though Mrs. McChesney's feet were still on the ground, she might
Emma McChesney & Co. |
