| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: consequently from the canons of criticism.
The Roman state had attained in his eyes, by means of the mutual
counteraction of three opposing forces, (7) that stable equilibrium
in politics which was the ideal of all the theoretical writers of
antiquity. And in connection with this point it will be convenient
to notice here how much truth there is contained in the accusation
often brought against the ancients that they knew nothing of the
idea of Progress, for the meaning of many of their speculations
will be hidden from us if we do not try and comprehend first what
their aim was, and secondly why it was so.
Now, like all wide generalities, this statement is at least
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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: seizing my hand and covering it with kisses. With a start I
opened my eyes to look into the beautiful face of Thuvia.
"My Prince! My Prince!" she cried, in an ecstasy of happiness.
"'Tis you whom I had mourned as dead. My ancestors
have been good to me; I have not lived in vain."
The girl's voice awoke Xodar and Carthoris. The boy
gazed upon the woman in surprise, but she did not seem to
realize the presence of another than I. She would have
thrown her arms about my neck and smothered me with
caresses, had I not gently but firmly disengaged myself.
"Come, come, Thuvia," I said soothingly; "you are overwrought
The Gods of Mars |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: love, her great qualities.
"The Provveditore called his servants, the palace was surrounded and
entered; I fought for my life that I might die beneath Bianca's eyes;
Bianca helped me to kill the Provveditore. Once before she had refused
flight with me; but after six months of happiness she wished only to
die with me, and received several thrusts. I was entangled in a great
cloak that they flung over me, carried down to a gondola, and hurried
to the Pozzi dungeons. I was twenty-two years old. I gripped the hilt
of my broken sword so hard, that they could only have taken it from me
by cutting off my hand at the wrist. A curious chance, or rather the
instinct of self-preservation, led me to hide the fragment of the
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