| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: the charity of a pariah. We must suppose the pariah devoid of
second-sight, and not purposely malicious in this act. Such an
experience, it might be thought, would have cured a man of the
desire to persecute; but the human spirit is a thing strangely put
together; and, having been a Christian martyr, Du Chayla became a
Christian persecutor. The Work of the Propagation of the Faith
went roundly forward in his hands. His house in Pont de Montvert
served him as a prison. There he closed the hands of his prisoners
upon live coal, and plucked out the hairs of their beards, to
convince them that they were deceived in their opinions. And yet
had not he himself tried and proved the inefficacy of these carnal
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: they'd been candles and somebody blowed them out. As for the race,
that was at an end. The minute she was lightened the comet swung
along by me the same as if I was anchored. The captain stood on
the stern, by the after-davits, and put his thumb to his nose and
sung out -
"Ta-ta! ta-ta! Maybe YOU'VE got some message to send your friends
in the Everlasting Tropics!"
Then he hove up his other suspender and started for'ard, and inside
of three-quarters of an hour his craft was only a pale torch again
in the distance. Yes, it was a mistake, Peters - that remark of
mine. I don't reckon I'll ever get over being sorry about it. I'd
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne: bad humour grew day by day. After all, I was not sorry for his obstinacy
under the circumstances. Indeed, there were too many seals on shore,
and we ought not to lay such temptation in this unreflecting fisherman's way.
Breakfast over, we went on shore. The Nautilus had gone some miles
further up in the night. It was a whole league from the coast,
above which reared a sharp peak about five hundred yards high.
The boat took with me Captain Nemo, two men of the crew, and the instruments,
which consisted of a chronometer, a telescope, and a barometer.
While crossing, I saw numerous whales belonging to the three kinds
peculiar to the southern seas; the whale, or the English "right whale,"
which has no dorsal fin; the "humpback," with reeved chest and large,
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea |
