| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: "O cruel cook, pray grant me some relief --
Some respite from the roast, however brief."
"Remember how on earth I pardoned all
Your friends in Illinois when held in thrall."
"Unhappy soul! for that alone you squirm
O'er fire unquenched, a never-dying worm.
"Yet, for I pity your uneasy state,
Your doom I'll mollify and pains abate.
"Naught, for a season, shall your comfort mar,
Not even the memory of who you are."
Throughout eternal space dread silence fell;
The Devil's Dictionary |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Copy-Cat & Other Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: of forest boughs, and saw in pleased anticipation
their red and gold tints of autumn; also in pleased
anticipation their snowy and icy mail of winter,
and himself, the unmailed, defenseless human crea-
ture, housed and sheltered, sitting before his
own fire. This last happy outlook aroused him.
If all this was to be, he must be up and doing.
He got up, entered the house, and examined the
broken umbrella which was his sole stock in trade.
David was a handy man. He at once knew that
he was capable of putting it in perfect repair.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: thought, dear? To begin with, you are fifty years old. Then you have
just the sort of face to put on a fruit stall; if the woman tried to
see you for a pumpkin, no one would contradict her. You puff and blow
like a seal when you come upstairs; your paunch rises and falls like a
diamond on a woman's forehead! It is pretty plain that you served in
the dragoons; you are a very ugly-looking old man. Fiddle-de-dee. If
you have any mind to keep my respect, I recommend you not to add
imbecility to these qualities by imagining that such a girl as I am
will be content with your asthmatic love, and not look for youth and
good looks and pleasure by way of a variety----"
"Aquilina! you are laughing, of course?"
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