| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Wife, et al by Anton Chekhov: And now, from old habit, I kiss Liza's fingers and mutter:
"Pistachio . . . cream . . . lemon. . ." but the effect is
utterly different. I am cold as ice and I am ashamed. When my
daughter comes in to me and touches my forehead with her lips I
start as though a bee had stung me on the head, give a forced
smile, and turn my face away. Ever since I have been suffering
from sleeplessness, a question sticks in my brain like a nail. My
daughter often sees me, an old man and a distinguished man, blush
painfully at being in debt to my footman; she sees how often
anxiety over petty debts forces me to lay aside my work and to
walk u p and down the room for hours together, thinking; but why
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith: prudently upon this occasion.
HASTINGS. (Aside.) He must not see my uneasiness.
MARLOW. You seem a little disconcerted though, methinks. Sure
nothing has happened?
HASTINGS. No, nothing. Never was in better spirits in all my life.
And so you left it with the landlady, who, no doubt, very readily
undertook the charge.
MARLOW. Rather too readily. For she not only kept the casket, but,
through her great precaution, was going to keep the messenger too. Ha!
ha! ha!
HASTINGS. He! he! he! They're safe, however.
She Stoops to Conquer |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: "Chateau X-?" said I. "I never heard of that."
"I dare say not," said he. "I had been reading one of X-'s
novels."
They were all castles in Spain! But that sure enough is the
reason why California wine is not drunk in the States.
Napa valley has been long a seat of the wine-growing
industry. It did not here begin, as it does too often, in
the low valley lands along the river, but took at once to the
rough foot-hills, where alone it can expect to prosper. A
basking inclination, and stones, to be a reservoir of the
day's heat, seem necessary to the soil for wine; the
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