| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: under pine-trees, along the corners of log fences, through
hollows, which must be hopeless marsh in the winter, and up
absurd gradients. But nowhere throughout its length did I see
any evidence of road-making. There was a track--you couldn't well
get off it, and it was all you could do to stay on it. The dust
lay a foot thick in the blind ruts, and under the dust we found
bits of planking and bundles of brushwood that sent the wagon
bounding into the air. The journey in itself was a delight.
Sometimes we crashed through bracken; anon, where the
blackberries grew rankest, we found a lonely little cemetery, the
wooden rails all awry and the pitiful, stumpy head-stones nodding
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: bought them all, and carefully transported them to their garrets and
dust holes, to lie there till their estates are settled, when they
will start again. When a man dies he kicks the dust.
The customs of some savage nations might, perchance, be
profitably imitated by us, for they at least go through the
semblance of casting their slough annually; they have the idea of
the thing, whether they have the reality or not. Would it not be
well if we were to celebrate such a "busk," or "feast of first
fruits," as Bartram describes to have been the custom of the
Mucclasse Indians? "When a town celebrates the busk," says he,
"having previously provided themselves with new clothes, new pots,
Walden |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: carefully and pulled down the blinds, and returning sat down upon
the bed with startling ponderosity.
"WHAT a day!" he said. "Good Lord!" and blew again, and Mr. Ledbetter
inclined to believe that the person was mopping his face. His boots
were good stout boots; the shadows of his legs upon the valance
suggested a formidable stoutness of aspect. After a time he removed
some upper garments--a coat and waistcoat, Mr. Ledbetter inferred--
and casting them over the rail of the bed remained breathing less
noisily, and as it seemed cooling from a considerable temperature.
At intervals he muttered to himself, and once he laughed softly. And
Mr. Ledbetter muttered to himself, but he did not laugh. "Of all the
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