| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: unclouded truthfulness in his discourse, the same forcible
clearness in his style, the same earnest simplicity in all he said
and did, that made itself, not marked by the eye and ear, but felt
upon the hearts of his audience.
I walked home with Miss Matilda; but HE DID NOT JOIN US. Matilda
was now sadly at a loss for amusement, and wofully in want of a
companion: her brothers at school, her sister married and gone,
she too young to be admitted into society; for which, from
Rosalie's example, she was in some degree beginning to acquire a
taste - a taste at least for the company of certain classes of
gentlemen; at this dull time of year - no hunting going on, no
Agnes Grey |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: and better. [This compelled interest, and evoked murmurs of
surprise that had a detectable ingredient of disappointment in them.]
If I seem to be springing this evidence upon the court,
I offer as my justification for this, that I did not discover its
existence until late last night, and have been engaged in
examining and classifying it ever since, until half an hour ago.
I shall offer it presently; but first I with to say a few
preliminary words.
"May it please the court, the claim given the front place,
the claim most persistently urged, the claim most strenuously and
I may even say aggressively and defiantly insisted upon by the
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: inverted images of the grey sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems,
and the vacant and eye-like windows.
Nevertheless, in this mansion of gloom I now proposed to
myself a sojourn of some weeks. Its proprietor, Roderick Usher,
had been one of my boon companions in boyhood; but many years had
elapsed since our last meeting. A letter, however, had lately
reached me in a distant part of the country--a letter from him--
which, in its wildly importunate nature, had admitted of no other
than a personal reply. The MS gave evidence of nervous
agitation. The writer spoke of acute bodily illness--of a mental
disorder which oppressed him--and of an earnest desire to see me,
The Fall of the House of Usher |
