| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Black Dwarf by Walter Scott: Ratcliffe, when any one approached his master. I think you will
be of opinion, my love, that this secrecy must have had some
strong motive. It is also remarkable, that while I thought my
unhappy friend was residing among the Monks of La Trappe, he
should have been actually living, for many months, in this
bizarre disguise, within five miles of my house, and obtaining
regular information of my most private movements, either by
Ratcliffe, or through Westburnflat or others, whom he had the
means to bribe to any extent. He makes it a crime against me
that I endeavoured to establish your marriage with Sir Frederick.
I acted for the best; but if Sir Edward Mauley thought otherwise,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: asked, curiously. - Why, the parenthesis, said I. - PARENTHESIS?
said the Professor; what's that? - Why, look in the glass when you
are disposed to laugh, and see if your mouth isn't framed in a
couple of crescent lines, - so, my boy ( ). - It's all nonsense,
said the Professor; just look at my BICEPS; - and he began pulling
off his coat to show me his arm. Be careful, said I; you can't
bear exposure to the air, at your time of life, as you could once.
- I will box with you, said the Professor, row with you, walk with
you, ride with you, swim with you, or sit at table with you, for
fifty dollars a side. - Pluck survives stamina, I answered.
The Professor went off a little out of humor. A few weeks
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: and the man in the boat was white, and therefore they were turned into
trespassers because he had sailed by in a boat. That was the title to
Louisiana which we bought from Napoleon Bonaparte.
The Louisiana Purchase was a piece of land running up the Mississippi, up
the Missouri, over the Divide, and down the Columbia to the Pacific.
Before we acquired it, our area was over a quarter, but not half, a
million square miles. This added nearly a million square miles more. But
what had we really bought? Nothing but stolen goods. The Indians were
there before La Salle, from whose boat-sailing the title we bought was
derived. "But," you may object, "when whites rob reds or blacks, we call
it Discovery; land-grabbing is when whites rob whites--and that is where
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