| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost: "Manon had a brother in the Guards. He unfortunately lived in
the very street in which we had taken lodgings. He one day
recognised his sister at the window, and hastened over to us. He
was a fellow of the rudest manners, and without the slightest
principle of honour. He entered the room swearing in the most
horrible way; and as he knew part of his sister's history, he
loaded her with abuse and reproaches.
"I had gone out the moment before, which was doubtless fortunate
for either him or me, for I was little disposed to brook an
insult. I only returned to the lodgings after he had left them.
The low spirits in which I found Manon convinced me at once that
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: buried their faces in their arms and wept.
Late in the afternoon a messenger arrived from Zat Arras
to inform us that we would be tried by an impartial body
of nobles in the great hall of the temple at the 1st
zode* on the following day, or about 8:40 A.M. Earth time.
*Wherever Captain Carter has used Martian measurements of time,
distance, weight, and the like I have translated them into as nearly their
equivalent in earthly values as is possible. His notes contain many
Martian tables, and a great volume of scientific data, but since the
International Astronomic Society is at present engaged in classifying,
investigating, and verifying this vast fund of remarkable and valuable
The Gods of Mars |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: His gift of putting things simply and clearly was partly the
habit of his own clear mind, and partly the result of the
training he gave himself in days of boyish poverty, when paper
and ink were luxuries almost beyond his reach, and the words he
wished to set down must be the best words, and the clearest and
shortest to express the ideas he had in view. This training of
thought before expression, of knowing exactly what he wished to
say before saying it, stood him in good stead all his life; but
only the mind of a great man, with a lofty soul and a poet's
vision; one who had suffered deeply and felt keenly; who carried
the burden of a nation on his heart, whose sympathies were as
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