| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey: bitter eyes.
"I'm not that kind of a liar. And you know it. If I lied--if I
kept silent when honor should have made me speak, it was to spare
you. I came to Cottonwoods to tell you. But I couldn't add to
your pain. I intended to tell you I had come to love this girl.
But, Jane I hadn't forgotten how good you were to me. I haven't
changed at all toward you. I prize your friendship as I always
have. But, however it may look to you--don't be unjust. The girl
is innocent. Ask Lassiter."
"Jane, she's jest as sweet an' innocent as little Fay," said
Lassiter. There was a faint smile upon his face and a beautiful
Riders of the Purple Sage |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: this direct attack; but by the time he was ready with his answer, and
the angle was almost packed up, he had become completely Weir, and the
hanging face gloomed on his young shoulders. He spoke with a laboured
composure, a laboured kindness even; but a child could see that his mind
was made up.
"I beg your pardon, Innes; I don't want to be disagreeable, but let us
understand one another from the beginning. When I want your company,
I'll let you know."
"O!" cries Frank, "you don't want my company, don't you?"
"Apparently not just now," replied Archie. "I even indicated to you
when I did, if you'll remember - and that was at dinner. If we two
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: lived both at the Hawes and Burford in a perpetual flutter, on the
heels, as it seemed, of some adventure that should justify the
place; but though the feeling had me to bed at night and called me
again at morning in one unbroken round of pleasure and suspense,
nothing befell me in either worth remark. The man or the hour had
not yet come; but some day, I think, a boat shall put off from the
Queen's Ferry, fraught with a dear cargo, and some frosty night a
horseman, on a tragic errand, rattle with his whip upon the green
shutters of the inn at Burford. (9)
Now, this is one of the natural appetites with which any lively
literature has to count. The desire for knowledge, I had almost
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