| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce: "I can travel considerably faster than you."
"Yes," the Man Running for Office replied, "but think how much
longer I keep going!"
The Lassoed Bear
A HUNTER who had lassoed a Bear was trying to disengage himself
from the rope, but the slip-knot about his wrist would not yield,
for the Bear was all the time pulling in the slack with his paws.
In the midst of his trouble the Hunter saw a Showman passing by,
and managed to attract his attention.
"What will you give me," he said, "for my Bear?"
"It will be some five or ten minutes," said the Showman, "before I
Fantastic Fables |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: Leaving monstrosities aside, are not all human sentiments dissolved
thus, by ghastly disillusionment? Children torture mothers by their
bad conduct, or their lack of affection. Wives are betrayed.
Mistresses are cast aside, abandoned. Talk of friendship! Is there
such a thing! I would turn pious to-morrow if I did not know that I
can remain like the inaccessible summit of a cliff amid the tempests
of life. If the future of the Christian is an illusion too, at all
events it is not destroyed until after death. Leave me to myself."
"Ah!" said I, "you know how to punish."
"Am I in the wrong?"
"Yes," I replied, with a sort of desperate courage. "By finishing this
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain: pon that of professing to be fond of Pain-killer. He
asked for it so often that he became a nuisance, and
his aunt ended by telling him to help himself and quit
bothering her. If it had been Sid, she would have had
no misgivings to alloy her delight; but since it was Tom,
she watched the bottle clandestinely. She found that
the medicine did really diminish, but it did not occur
to her that the boy was mending the health of a crack
in the sitting-room floor with it.
One day Tom was in the act of dosing the crack
when his aunt's yellow cat came along, purring, ey-
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer |
