| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: those parts, who have been careful in collecting and collating
the floating facts concerning this spectre, allege that the body
of the trooper having been buried in the churchyard, the ghost
rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head,
and that the rushing speed with which he sometimes passes along
the Hollow, like a midnight blast, is owing to his being belated,
and in a hurry to get back to the churchyard before daybreak.
Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition,
which has furnished materials for many a wild story in that
region of shadows; and the spectre is known at all the country
firesides, by the name of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: If there be an object to HURRY any of you in hot haste to a step
which you would never take DELIBERATELY, that object will be
frustrated by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated
by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied, still have the
old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point,
the laws of your own framing under it; while the new administration
will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either.
If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the
right side in the dispute, there still is no single good reason
for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity,
and a firm reliance on him who has never yet forsaken this favored land,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: figures almost lost in vast spaces of completely empty ruled columns.
The first proceeding is to deduct the costs. Now, as the costs are
precisely the same whether the amount attached is one thousand or one
million francs, it is not difficult to eat up three thousand francs
(for instance) in costs, especially if you can manage to raise counter
applications."
"And an attorney always manages to do it," said Cardot. "How many a
time one of you has come to me with, 'What is there to be got out of
the case?' "
"It is particularly easy to manage it if the debtor eggs you on to run
up costs till they eat up the amount. And, as a rule, the Count's
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