| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln: who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power
to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember,
what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished
work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining
before us. . .that from these honored dead we take increased devotion
to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. . .
that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. . .
that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. . .
and that government of the people. . .by the people. . .for the people. . .
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: degrees, and the accumulated vapor in the air was not long in resolving
into snow. All the island was covered with a sheet of white, and showed
itself to its inhabitants under a new aspect. The snow fell abundantly for
several days, and it soon reached a thickness of two feet.
The wind also blew with great violence, and at the height of Granite
House the sea could be heard thundering against the reefs. In some places,
the wind, eddying round the corners, formed the snow into tall whirling
columns, resembling those waterspouts which turn round on their base, and
which vessels attack with a shot from a gun. However, the storm, coming
from the northwest, blew across the island, and the position of Granite
House preserved it from a direct attack.
The Mysterious Island |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: play-actor without a brass farthing to bless himself with."
"What makes you think that, little man?" asked the mistress of the
mill.
"Lord, he is not a prince, nor a lord, nor a member of parliament, nor
a bishop; why are his hands as white as if he did nothing?"
"Then it is very strange that he does not feel hungry and wake up,"
retorted the miller's wife; she had just prepared breakfast for
yesterday's chance guest. "A play-actor, is he?" she continued. "Where
will he be going? It is too early yet for the fair at Angouleme."
But neither the miller nor his wife suspected that (actors, princes,
and bishops apart) there is a kind of being who is both prince and
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