| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane: prominent chairs, ordering waiters here and there and quarreling
furiously with men who wanted to sing with the orchestra.
The usual smoke cloud was present, but so dense that heads and
arms seemed entangled in it. The rumble of conversation was
replaced by a roar. Plenteous oaths heaved through the air.
The room rang with the shrill voices of women bubbling o'er with
drink-laughter. The chief element in the music of the orchestra
was speed. The musicians played in intent fury. A woman was
singing and smiling upon the stage, but no one took notice of her.
The rate at which the piano, cornet and violins were going, seemed
to impart wildness to the half-drunken crowd. Beer glasses were
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Second Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--
seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation.
Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather
than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather
than let it perish. And the war came.
One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed
generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it.
These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew
that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen,
perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the
insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed
Second Inaugural Address |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: men that it weakens one to talk with an hour more than a day's
fasting would do. Mark this that I am going to say, for it is as
good as a working professional man's advice, and costs you nothing:
It is better to lose a pint of blood from your veins than to have a
nerve tapped. Nobody measures your nervous force as it runs away,
nor bandages your brain and marrow after the operation.
There are men of ESPRIT who are excessively exhausting to some
people. They are the talkers who have what may be called JERKY
minds. Their thoughts do not run in the natural order of sequence.
They say bright things on all possible subjects, but their zigzags
rack you to death. After a jolting half-hour with one of these
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
