| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber: definition has to do with such words as emotion, sympathy,
tenderness, courage, conviction. She was working, now, as
Michael Fenger worked, relentlessly, coldly, indomitably,
using all the material at hand as a means to an end, with
never a thought of the material itself, as a
builder reaches for a brick, or stone, and fits it into
place, smoothly, almost without actually seeing the brick
itself, except as something which will help to make a
finished wall. She rarely prowled the city now. She told
herself she was too tired at night, and on Sundays and
holidays, and I suppose she was. Indeed, she no longer saw
 Fanny Herself |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle: breeze that sent white caps all over the sea, and with nothing to
do but sit and look at that blue sea and the bright sky overhead,
it is not hard to suppose what was to befall, and what pleasure
it was to Barnaby True to show attention to her.
But, oh! those days when a man is young, and, whether wisely or
no, fallen in love! How often during that voyage did our hero
lie awake in his berth at night, tossing this way and that
without sleep--not that he wanted to sleep if he could, but would
rather lie so awake thinking about her and staring into the
darkness!
Poor fool! He might have known that the end must come to such a
 Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: One day I came near making myself the accomplice, as it were, of the
crime which led to the opulence of the Taillefer family. I was on the
point of asking the father for Victorine's hand. But I fled; I
travelled; I went to Germany, to Andernach; and then--I returned! I
found Victorine pale, and thinner; if I had seen her well in health
and gay, I should certainly have been saved. Instead of which my love
burst out again with untold violence. Fearing that my scruples might
degenerate into monomania, I resolved to convoke a sanhedrim of sound
consciences, and obtain from them some light on this problem of high
morality and philosophy,--a problem which had been, as we shall see,
still further complicated since my return.
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