| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Betty Zane by Zane Grey: would crawl through the grass and shrubs until beneath her window. At a low
signal, prearranged between them, she would slip to the door and let him in
without disturbing the parents. Fearing to make a light, and perhaps welcoming
that excuse to enjoy the darkness beloved by sweethearts, they would sit
quietly, whispering low, until the brightening in the east betokened the break
of day, and then he was off, happy and lighthearted, to his labors.
A wedding was looked forward to with much pleasure by old and young.
Practically, it meant the only gathering of the settlers which was not
accompanied by the work of reaping the harvest, building a cabin, planning an
expedition to relieve some distant settlement, or a defense for themselves.
For all, it meant a rollicking good time; to the old people a feast, and the
Betty Zane |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: owned my resemblance in every part, but could not account for
their degenerate and brutal nature. I said farther, "that if
good fortune ever restored me to my native country, to relate my
travels hither, as I resolved to do, everybody would believe,
that I said the thing that was not, that I invented the story out
of my own head; and (with all possible respect to himself, his
family, and friends, and under his promise of not being offended)
our countrymen would hardly think it probable that a HOUYHNHNM
should be the presiding creature of a nation, and a YAHOO the
brute."
CHAPTER IV.
Gulliver's Travels |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: the stroke of two he was again knocking at his pupils' door. But no
answer came. John had gone away somewhere for indefinite hours and the
door was locked. So Oscar wrote: "Called, two p.m.," on a scrap of
envelope, signed his name, and put it through the letter-slit. It
crossed his mind to hunt other pupils for his vacant time, but he
decided against this at once, and returned to his own room. Three
o'clock found him back at the door, knocking scrupulously, The idea of
performing his side of the contract, of tendering his goods and standing
ready at all times to deliver them, was in his commercially mature mind.
This time he had brought a neat piece of paper with him, and wrote upon
it, "Called, three P.M.," and signed it as before, and departed to his
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