| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: malady proceeds through varying stages. This vital putrescence of
the dust, used as we are to it, yet strikes us with occasional
disgust, and the profusion of worms in a piece of ancient turf, or
the air of a marsh darkened with insects, will sometimes check our
breathing so that we aspire for cleaner places. But none is clean:
the moving sand is infected with lice; the pure spring, where it
bursts out of the mountain, is a mere issue of worms; even in the
hard rock the crystal is forming.
In two main shapes this eruption covers the countenance of the
earth: the animal and the vegetable: one in some degree the
inversion of the other: the second rooted to the spot; the first
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: well-worn trail led them beyond the outer fortification
to the desolate valley of Opar.
Tarzan had no idea, in so far as Werper could discover,
as to where he was or whence he came. He wandered
aimlessly about, searching for food, which he
discovered beneath small rocks, or hiding in the shade
of the scant brush which dotted the ground.
The Belgian was horrified by the hideous menu of his
companion. Beetles, rodents and caterpillars were
devoured with seeming relish. Tarzan was indeed an ape
again.
Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: sympathy to Claparon, poor buffer, for I shall file this business
under the letter Z.'
"All this with an easy good-humor fit to give a virtuous citizen the
colic.
" 'You are wrong, Monsieur le Comte,' retorted Cerizet, in a slightly
peremptory tone. 'We will be paid in full, and that in a way which you
may not like. That is why I came to you first in a friendly spirit, as
is right and fit between gentlemen--'
" 'Oh! so that is how you understand it?' began Maxime, enraged by
this last piece of presumption. There was something of Talleyrand's
wit in the insolent retort, if you have quite grasped the contrast
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