| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: which he recovered from the emotion caused by the abrupt entrance, and
the look and voice of the mother. "She is there," he repeated,
pointing to the door of the little chamber.
"Yes, but has any harm come to her; is she still--"
"Perfectly well," said Dona Lagounia.
"O God! send me to hell if it so pleases thee!" cried the Marana,
dropping, exhausted and half dead, into a chair.
The flush in her cheeks, due to anxiety, paled suddenly; she had
strength to endure suffering, but none to bear this joy. Joy was more
violent in her soul than suffering, for it contained the echoes of her
pain and the agonies of its own emotion.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: altogether new to him. It proved, however, not alien to his
understanding, as it was alien to Mr. Taylor's.
We drove onward, a mile perhaps, and then two. He had lately been
full of words, but now he barely answered me, so that a silence
fell upon both of us. It must have been all of ten miles that we
had driven when he spoke of his own accord.
"Your real spinster don't speak of her lot that easy," he
remarked. And presently he quoted a phrase about the complexion,
"Could I sue them if mine got damaged?"' and he smiled over this
to himself, shaking his head. "What would she be doing on Bear
Creek?" he next said. And finally: "I reckon that witness will
The Virginian |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Awakening & Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin: "Of course not," echoed Mariequita, with a serious,
confirmatory bob of the head.
The sun was high up and beginning to bite. The swift breeze
seemed to Edna to bury the sting of it into the pores of her face
and hands. Robert held his umbrella over her. As they went
cutting sidewise through the water, the sails bellied taut, with
the wind filling and overflowing them. Old Monsieur Farival
laughed sardonically at something as he looked at the sails, and
Beaudelet swore at the old man under his breath.
Sailing across the bay to the Cheniere Caminada, Edna felt
as if she were being borne away from some anchorage which had held
Awakening & Selected Short Stories |
