| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: with the allied Powers.
Passing over the two bad years of the Empress Dowager, which we
have treated in another chapter, we find her again, after the
failure of the Boxer uprising, and the return of the court to
Peking, reissuing the same style of edicts that had gone out from
the pen of Kuang Hsu. On August 29, 1901, she ordered "the
abolition of essays on the Chinese classics in examinations for
literary degrees, and substituted therefor essays and articles on
some phase of modern affairs, Western laws or political economy.
This same procedure is to be followed in examination of
candidates for office."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton: mahogany bedstead surmounted by a chromo of a young lady in a
night-gown who clung with eloquently-rolling eyes to a crag
described in illuminated letters as the Rock of Ages; and against
the unshaded windows two rocking-chairs and a sewing-machine were
silhouetted on the dusk.
Ann Eliza, her small and habitually anxious face smoothed to
unusual serenity, and the streaks of pale hair on her veined
temples shining glossily beneath the lamp, had seated herself at
the table, and was tying up, with her usual fumbling deliberation,
a knobby object wrapped in paper. Now and then, as she struggled
with the string, which was too short, she fancied she heard the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: She could scarcely form her words.
"No, a man; a Mr. Simon Harrington, of Pittsburg."
Her effort to retain her self-control was pitiful. Then she broke
down and cried, her head on the back of a tall chair.
"It was my fault," she said wretchedly, "my fault, I should not
have sent them the word."
After a few minutes she grew quiet. She seemed to hesitate over
something, and finally determined to say it.
"You will understand better, sir, when I say that I was raised in
the Harrington family. Mr. Harrington was Mr. Sullivan's wife's
father!"
The Man in Lower Ten |
