| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: We took out his entrails and sunk him in the creek.
'He had sold the other negro the third time on Arkansaw River for upwards
of five hundred dollars; and then stole him and delivered him into the hand
of his friend, who conducted him to a swamp, and veiled the tragic scene,
and got the last gleanings and sacred pledge of secrecy; as a game of that
kind will not do unless it ends in a mystery to all but the fraternity.
He sold the negro, first and last, for nearly two thousand dollars,
and then put him for ever out of the reach of all pursuers; and they can
never graze him unless they can find the negro; and that they cannot do,
for his carcass has fed many a tortoise and catfish before this time,
and the frogs have sung this many a long day to the silent repose
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen: its being excited by something wrong in her appearance,
she turned away her head. But while she did so,
the gentleman retreated, and her partner, coming nearer,
said, "I see that you guess what I have just been asked.
That gentleman knows your name, and you have a right
to know his. It is General Tilney, my father."
Catherine's answer was only "Oh!"--but it was an "Oh!"
expressing everything needful: attention to his words,
and perfect reliance on their truth. With real interest
and strong admiration did her eye now follow the general,
as he moved through the crowd, and "How handsome a family
Northanger Abbey |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: Emperor invite others to partake of their felicity."
"Great Prince," said Imlac, "I shall speak the truth. I know not
one of all your attendants who does not lament the hour when he
entered this retreat. I am less unhappy than the rest, because I
have a mind replete with images, which I can vary and combine at
pleasure. I can amuse my solitude by the renovation of the
knowledge which begins to fade from my memory, and by recollection
of the accidents of my past life. Yet all this ends in the
sorrowful consideration that my acquirements are now useless, and
that none of my pleasures can be again enjoyed. The rest, whose
minds have no impression but of the present moment, are either
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