| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: relate to or be nearer to the sea, never return to the fresh waters, as the
Salmon does always desire to do, when they have once tasted the salt
water; and I do the more easily believe this, because I am certain that
powdered beef is a most excellent bait to catch an Eel. And though Sir
Francis Bacon will allow the Eel's life to be but ten years, yet he, in his
History of Life and Death, mentions a Lamprey, belonging to the
Roman emperor, to be made tame, and so kept for almost threescorc
years; and that such useful and pleasant observations were made of this
Lamprey, that Crassus the orator, who kept her, lamented her death;
and we read in Doctor Hakewill, that Hortensius was seen to weep at
the death of a Lamprey that he had kept long, and loved exceedingly.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Enchanted Island of Yew by L. Frank Baum: Seseley drew a long, sighing breath of amazement at her own powers,
and turning to Berna and Helda she asked:
"Do I see aright? Is the little fairy really transformed to this youth?"
"It certainly seems so," returned Helda, who, being unabashed by the
marvels she had beheld, turned to gaze boldly upon the young knight.
"Do you still remember that a moment ago you were a fairy?" she inquired.
"Yes, indeed," said he, smiling; "and I am really a fairy now, being
but changed in outward form. But no one must know this save
yourselves, until the year has expired and I resume my true station.
Will you promise to guard my secret?"
"Oh, yes!" they exclaimed, in chorus. For they were delighted, as any
The Enchanted Island of Yew |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: department of the Correze, gentleman in ordinary of the bed-
chamber, president of the college of the department of the
Dordogne, officer of the Legion of honor, knight of Saint Louis
and of the foreign orders of Christ, Isabella, Saint Wladimir,
etc., member of the Academy of Gers, and other learned bodies,
vice-president of the Society of Belles-lettres, member of the
Association of Saint-Joseph and of the Society of Prisons, one of
the mayors of Paris, etc."
The person who requires so much typographic space was at this time
occupying an area five feet six in length by thirty-six inches in
width in a bed, his head adorned with a cotton night-cap tied on by
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