| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Old Indian Legends by Zitkala-Sa: day. Have pity on me, young brave, and shoot yonder bird for me!"
With these words Iktomi pointed toward the tree-top, where sat a
bird on the highest branch. The young avenger, always ready to
help those in distress, sent an arrow upward and the bird fell. In
the next branch it was caught between the forked prongs.
"My friend, climb the tree and get the bird. I cannot climb
so high. I would get dizzy and fall," pleaded Iktomi. The avenger
began to scale the tree, when Iktomi cried to him: "My friend, your
beaded buckskins may be torn by the branches. Leave them safe upon
the grass till you are down again."
"You are right," replied the young man, quickly slipping off
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Chouans by Honore de Balzac: him, cursed thunder! too long."
The soldiers stood about, motionless. The commandant himself
unfastened the long black hair of a woman. Suddenly the silence was
broken by the tramp of men and Corentin entered the guardroom,
preceding four soldiers who bore on their guns, crossed to make a
litter, the body of Montauran, who was shot in the thighs and arms.
They laid him on the bedstead beside his wife. He saw her, and found
strength to clasp her hand with a convulsive gesture. The dying woman
turned her head, recognized her husband, and shuddered with a spasm
that was horrible to see, murmuring in a voice almost extinct: "A day
without a morrow! God heard me too well!"
The Chouans |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela: me, eh? Well, take this. . . ."
A heavy blow sent the waiter reeling to the floor.
"That's the sort of man I am, General Macias! I'm
clean-shaven, eh? Not a hair on my chin? Do you know
why? Well, I'll tell you! You see I get mad easy as hell;
and when there's nobody to pick on, I pull my hair until
my temper passes. If I hadn't pulled my beard hair by
hair, I'd have died a long time ago from sheer anger!"
"It does you no good to go to pieces when you're
angry," a man affirmed earnestly from below a hat that
covered his head as a roof does a house. "When I was
The Underdogs |
