| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs: him down to his dark den beneath the surface to devour him.
The huge, snakelike body coiled and uncoiled about its prey.
The hideous, gaping jaws snapped in the victim's face.
The forked tongue, lightning-like, ran in and out upon
the copper skin.
Nobly the giant battled for his life, beating with his
stone hatchet against the bony armor that covered that
frightful carcass; but for all the damage he inflicted
he might as well have struck with his open palm.
At last I could endure no longer to sit supinely by while
a fellowman was dragged down to a horrible death by that
At the Earth's Core |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: have received grace; an inner state which before all things is
one of love and humility, of infinite confidence in God, and of
severity for one's self, accompanied with tenderness for others.
The fruits peculiar to this condition of the soul have the same
savor in all, under distant suns and in different surroundings,
in Saint Teresa of Avila just as in any Moravian brother of
Herrnhut."[143]
[143] Sainte-Beuve: Port-Royal, vol. i. pp. 95 and 106,
abridged.
Sainte-Beuve has here only the more eminent instances of
regeneration in mind, and these are of course the instructive
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: country, we should come upon a place called Clackamas, where we
might per-chance find what we desired. And California, his
coat-tails flying in the wind, ran to a livery-stable and
chartered a wagon and team forthwith. I could push the wagon
about with one hand, so light was its structure. The team was
purely American--that is to say, almost human in its intelligence
and docility. Some one said that the roads were not good on the
way to Clackamas, and warned us against smashing the springs.
"Portland," who had watched the preparations, finally reckoned
"He'd come along, too;" and under heavenly skies we three
companions of a day set forth, California carefully lashing our
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