| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: "Night time is the best and offers the only slender chance
we have, for then men sleep, and only a dozing watch nods
in the tops of the battleships. No watch is kept upon the
cruisers and smaller craft. The watchers upon the larger
vessels see to all about them. It is night now."
"But," I exclaimed, "it is not dark! How can it be night, then?"
He smiled.
"You forget," he said, "that we are far below ground.
The light of the sun never penetrates here. There are
no moons and no stars reflected in the bosom of Omean.
The phosphorescent light you now see pervading this great
The Gods of Mars |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: disease, yours and mine. Now inasmuch as we have plenty of wit, we
thought it would be a good thing to parade our dear little honor, or
dishonor, to catch an old boy; but that old boy, my dear heart, knows
the Alpha and Omega of female tricks,--which means that you could
easier put salt on a sparrow's tail than to make me believe I have
anything to do with your little affair. Go to Paris, my dear; go at
the cost of an old celibate, I won't prevent it; in fact, I'll help
you, for an old bachelor, Suzanne, is the natural money-box of a young
girl. But don't drag me into the matter. Listen, my queen, you who
know life pretty well; you would me great harm and give me much pain,
--harm, because you would prevent my marriage in a town where people
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: really for their guests' arrival.
In their new, clean, and light study with its small busts and
pictures and new furniture sat Berg and his wife. Berg, closely
buttoned up in his new uniform, sat beside his wife explaining to
her that one always could and should be acquainted with people above
one, because only then does one get satisfaction from acquaintances.
"You can get to know something, you can ask for something. See how I
managed from my first promotion." (Berg measured his life not by years
but by promotions.) "My comrades are still nobodies, while I am only
waiting for a vacancy to command a regiment, and have the happiness to
be your husband." (He rose and kissed Vera's hand, and on the way to
War and Peace |
