| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain: "Well, you're innocent, ain't you! Does three
hundred dollars lay around every day for people to
pick up? Some folks think the nigger ain't far from
here. I'm one of them -- but I hain't talked it around.
A few days ago I was talking with an old couple that
lives next door in the log shanty, and they happened
to say hardly anybody ever goes to that island over
yonder that they call Jackson's Island. Don't any-
body live there? says I. No, nobody, says they. I
didn't say any more, but I done some thinking. I
was pretty near certain I'd seen smoke over there,
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades: was easily re-placed), notwithstanding great care on my part,
became soiled and torn, and at last was given up to Nursery martyrdom.
Can I regret it? surely not, for, although bibliographically sinful,
who can weigh the amount of real pleasure received, and actual pain ignored,
by the patient in the contemplation of those beautifully-blended colours?
A neighbour of mine some few years ago suffered severely from a propensity,
apparently irresistible, in one of his daughters to tear his library books.
She was six years old, and would go quietly to a shelf and take down
a book or two, and having torn a dozen leaves or so down the middle,
would replace the volumes, fragments and all, in their places,
the damage being undiscovered until the books were wanted for use.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: Then said to me: "That one from whom is named
Thy race, and who a hundred years and more
Has circled round the mount on the first cornice,
A son of mine and thy great-grandsire was;
Well it behoves thee that the long fatigue
Thou shouldst for him make shorter with thy works.
Florence, within the ancient boundary
From which she taketh still her tierce and nones,
Abode in quiet, temperate and chaste.
No golden chain she had, nor coronal,
Nor ladies shod with sandal shoon, nor girdle
The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
