| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather: that even after dinner, when most men
achieve a decent impersonality, Bartley had
merely closed the door of the engine-room
and come up for an airing. The machinery
itself was still pounding on.
Bartley's abstraction and Wilson's reflections
were cut short by a rustle at the door,
and almost before they could rise Mrs.
Alexander was standing by the hearth.
Alexander brought a chair for her,
Alexander's Bridge |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Scarecrow of Oz by L. Frank Baum: become a dreary nightmare.
"At last I found a small tree that I thought bore the
same fruit as that I had eaten. The berry was dark purple
instead of light lavender, but otherwise it was quite
similar. Being unable to climb the tree, I was obliged to
wait underneath it until a sharp breeze arose and shook
the limbs so that a berry fell. Instantly I seized it and
taking a last view of the world -- as I then thought -- I
ate the berry in a twinkling. Then, to my surprise, I
began to grow big again, until I became of my former
stature, and so I have since remained. Needless to say, I
The Scarecrow of Oz |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: extremity of his ill fortune, to receive benefits and not be able
to return them. "But Alexander," said he, "whose kindness to my
mother, my wife, and my children I hope the gods will recompense,
will doubtless thank you for your humanity to me. Tell him,
therefore, in token of my acknowledgment, I give him this right
hand," with which words he took hold of Polystratus's hand and
died. When Alexander came up to them, he showed manifest tokens
of sorrow, and taking off his own cloak, threw it upon the body to
cover it. And sometime afterwards, when Bessus was taken, he
ordered him to be torn in pieces in this manner. They fastened
him to a couple of trees which were bound down so as to meet, and
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