| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from O Pioneers! by Willa Cather: striped shirts and suspenders. They were grown
men now, and, as Alexandra said, for the last
few years they had been growing more and
more like themselves. Lou was still the slighter
of the two, the quicker and more intelligent, but
apt to go off at half-cock. He had a lively blue
eye, a thin, fair skin (always burned red to the
neckband of his shirt in summer), stiff, yellow
hair that would not lie down on his head, and a
bristly little yellow mustache, of which he
was very proud. Oscar could not grow a mus-
O Pioneers! |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: his real nature; for he was capable of committing any silliness with
the most exemplary gravity. His clothes were a necessary envelope, to
which he paid not the slightest attention, for his eyes looked too
high among the clouds to concern themselves with such materialities.
This great unknown artist belonged to the kindly class of the self-
forgetting, who give their time and their soul to others, just as they
leave their gloves on every table and their umbrella at all doors. His
hands were of the kind that are dirty as soon as washed. In short, his
old body, badly poised on its knotted old legs, proving to what degree
a man can make it the mere accessory of his soul, belonged to those
strange creations which have been properly depicted only by a German,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Awakening & Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin: the day she sat on the floor, turning the pages of his letter,
seeking the reason which was left untold.
She had not noticed how he looked--only feeling his presence;
but she turned deliberately and observed him. After all, he had
been absent but a few months, and was not changed. His hair--the
color of hers--waved back from his temples in the same way as
before. His skin was not more burned than it had been at Grand Isle.
She found in his eyes, when he looked at her for one silent moment,
the same tender caress, with an added warmth and entreaty which had
not been there before the same glance which had penetrated to the
sleeping places of her soul and awakened them.
Awakening & Selected Short Stories |
