| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: up and drove back the Morlocks and the shadows, I knelt down and
lifted her. The wood behind seemed full of the stir and murmur
of a great company!
`She seemed to have fainted. I put her carefully upon my
shoulder and rose to push on, and then there came a horrible
realization. In manoeuvring with my matches and Weena, I had
turned myself about several times, and now I had not the faintest
idea in what direction lay my path. For all I knew, I might be
facing back towards the Palace of Green Porcelain. I found
myself in a cold sweat. I had to think rapidly what to do. I
determined to build a fire and encamp where we were. I put
The Time Machine |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: commonly thrust into somebody's pocket.
HANDKERCHIEF, n. A small square of silk or linen, used in various
ignoble offices about the face and especially serviceable at funerals
to conceal the lack of tears. The handkerchief is of recent
invention; our ancestors knew nothing of it and intrusted its duties
to the sleeve. Shakespeare's introducing it into the play of
"Othello" is an anachronism: Desdemona dried her nose with her skirt,
as Dr. Mary Walker and other reformers have done with their coattails
in our own day -- an evidence that revolutions sometimes go backward.
HANGMAN, n. An officer of the law charged with duties of the highest
dignity and utmost gravity, and held in hereditary disesteem by a
The Devil's Dictionary |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe: Dissenters, which I name because they assured me there was but
three more, and those very inconsiderable, in all the county of
Cornwall; whereas in Devonshire, which is the next county, there
are reckoned about seventy, some of which are exceeding large and
fine.
This town is also remarkable for a very great trade in all
manufactures of leather, such as boots, shoes, gloves, purses,
breaches, &c.; and some spinning of late years is set up here,
encouraged by the woollen manufacturers of Devonshire.
Between these two towns of Saltash and Liskeard is St. Germans, now
a village, decayed, and without any market, but the largest parish
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