| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: Akakievitch expressed himself chiefly by prepositions, adverbs, and
scraps of phrases which had no meaning whatever. If the matter was a
very difficult one, he had a habit of never completing his sentences;
so that frequently, having begun a phrase with the words, "This, in
fact, is quite--" he forgot to go on, thinking that he had already
finished it.
"What is it?" asked Petrovitch, and with his one eye scanned
Akakievitch's whole uniform from the collar down to the cuffs, the
back, the tails and the button-holes, all of which were well known to
him, since they were his own handiwork. Such is the habit of tailors;
it is the first thing they do on meeting one.
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: under compulsion, with some directness. His thoughts
were absorbed, he said, by the contemplation of vast,
abstract schemes of creation and the government of the universe,
and it only diverted and embarrassed his mind to try
to fasten it upon the details of personal salvation.
Thereafter the topic was not broached between them.
She bestowed a good deal of attention, too, upon her piano.
The knack of a girlish nimbleness of touch had returned
to her after a few weeks, and she made music which Theron
supposed was very good--for her. It pleased him,
at all events, when he sat and listened to it; but he had
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber: me." They wasted little conversation on the stag. It was much
more exciting to exhibit letters on blue-lined paper with the red
emblem at the top. Chuck's last letter had contained the news of
his sergeancy.
Angie Hatton, home from the East, was writing letters, too.
Everyone in Chippewa knew that. She wrote on that new art paper
with the gnawed- looking edges and stiff as a newly laundered
cuff. But the letters which she awaited so eagerly were written
on the same sort of paper as were those Tessie had from
Chuck--blue-lined, cheap in quality. A New York fellow, Chippewa
learned; an aviator. They knew, too, that young Hatton was an
One Basket |
