| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Off on a Comet by Jules Verne: In one corner of the compartment stood a small iron stove, in which
smoldered a bare handful of coals; in another was a trestle-board
which served as a bed; two or three stools and a rickety deal table,
together with a few cooking utensils, completed a stock of furniture
which was worthy of its proprietor.
On entering the cabin, Ben Zoof's first proceeding was to throw on
the fire a liberal supply of coals, utterly regardless of the groans
of poor Isaac, who would almost as soon have parted with his
own bones as submit to such reckless expenditure of his fuel.
The perishing temperature of the cabin, however, was sufficient
justification for the orderly's conduct, and by a little skillful
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Critias by Plato: great offerings of kings and of private persons, coming both from the city
itself and from the foreign cities over which they held sway. There was an
altar too, which in size and workmanship corresponded to this magnificence,
and the palaces, in like manner, answered to the greatness of the kingdom
and the glory of the temple.
In the next place, they had fountains, one of cold and another of hot
water, in gracious plenty flowing; and they were wonderfully adapted for
use by reason of the pleasantness and excellence of their waters. They
constructed buildings about them and planted suitable trees, also they made
cisterns, some open to the heaven, others roofed over, to be used in winter
as warm baths; there were the kings' baths, and the baths of private
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: we nursed him. Juste at once called in the chief physician of the
hospital where he was working as house-surgeon. I was then living
alone in our room, and I was the most attentive attendant; but care
and science alike were in vain. By the month of January, 1838, Marcas
himself felt that he had but a few days to live.
The man whose soul and brain he had been for six months never even
sent to inquire after him. Marcas expressed the greatest contempt for
the Government; he seemed to doubt what the fate of France might be,
and it was this doubt that had made him ill. He had, he thought,
detected treason in the heart of power, not tangible, seizable
treason, the result of facts, but the treason of a system, the
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