| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Mother by Owen Wister: to do it for him. Nor did I then know anything about the lands in
Michigan--though this would have made no difference. Ethel had been
accustomed to a house several stories high, with hot and cold water in
most of them, and somebody to answer the door-bell."
"The door-bell!" exclaimed Ethel. "I could have gone without hearing
that."
"Yes, Ethel, only to hear the welkin ring would have been enough for you.
I know that you are sincere in thinking so. And the ringing welkin is all
we should have heard in Michigan. But the more truly a man loves a girl,
the less can he bear taking her from an easy to a hard life. I am sure
that all the men here agree with me."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Caesar's Commentaries in Latin by Julius Caesar: rem suscipit et a Sequanis impetrat ut per fines suos Helvetios ire
patiantur, obsidesque uti inter sese dent perficit: Sequani, ne itinere
Helvetios prohibeant, Helvetii, ut sine maleficio et iniuria transeant.
Caesari renuntiatur Helvetiis esse in animo per agrum Sequanorum et
Haeduorum iter in Santonum fines facere, qui non longe a Tolosatium
finibus absunt, quae civitas est in provincia. Id si fieret, intellegebat
magno cum periculo provinciae futurum ut homines bellicosos, populi Romani
inimicos, locis patentibus maximeque frumentariis finitimos haberet. Ob
eas causas ei munitioni quam fecerat T. Labienum legatum praeficit; ipse
in Italiam magnis itineribus contendit duasque ibi legiones conscribit et
tres, quae circum Aquileiam hiemabant, ex hibernis educit et, qua proximum
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: APOSTATE, n. A leech who, having penetrated the shell of a turtle
only to find that the creature has long been dead, deems it expedient
to form a new attachment to a fresh turtle.
APOTHECARY, n. The physician's accomplice, undertaker's benefactor
and grave worm's provider.
When Jove sent blessings to all men that are,
And Mercury conveyed them in a jar,
That friend of tricksters introduced by stealth
Disease for the apothecary's health,
Whose gratitude impelled him to proclaim:
"My deadliest drug shall bear my patron's name!"
The Devil's Dictionary |
