| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard: curling mustachios.
Umslopogaas leant upon the handle of Inkosi-kaas, and broke into
a long, low laugh; and Alphonse, overcome with fear, sank into
a sitting posture on the ground, while we stood astonished at
this exhibition of almost superhuman skill and mastery of a weapon.
'Inkosi-kaas is sharp enough,' he shouted; 'the blow that clipped
the "buffalo-heifer's" horn would have split a man from the crown
to the chin. Few could have struck it but I; none could have
struck it and not taken off the shoulder too. Look, thou little
heifer! Am I a good man to laugh at, thinkest thou? For a space
hast thou stood within a hair's-breadth of death. Laugh not
Allan Quatermain |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott: pledged their troth in the most solemn manner; and it is said the
young lady imprecated dreadful evils on herself should she break
her plighted faith. Shortly after, a suitor who was favoured by
Lord Stair, and still more so by his lady, paid his addresses to
Miss Dalrymple. The young lady refused the proposal, and being
pressed on the subject, confessed her secret engagement. Lady
Stair, a woman accustomed to universal submission, for even her
husband did not dare to contradict her, treated this objection as
a trifle, and insisted upon her daughter yielding her consent to
marry the new suitor, David Dunbar, son and heir to David Dunbar
of Baldoon, in Wigtonshire. The first lover, a man of very high
The Bride of Lammermoor |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Toqueville: the courts of justice alone. If the judge had been empowered to
contest the laws on the ground of theoretical generalities, if he
had been enabled to open an attack or to pass a censure on the
legislator, he would have played a prominent part in the
political sphere; and as the champion or the antagonist of a
party, he would have arrayed the hostile passions of the nation
in the conflict. But when a judge contests a law applied to some
particular case in an obscure proceeding, the importance of his
attack is concealed from the public gaze, his decision bears upon
the interest of an individual, and if the law is slighted it is
only collaterally. Moreover, although it is censured, it is not
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