| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: never to read a line."
"Gibbon the historian?" enquired Mrs. Flushing. "I connect him
with some of the happiest hours of my life. We used to lie in bed
and read Gibbon--about the massacres of the Christians, I remember--
when we were supposed to be asleep. It's no joke, I can tell you,
readin' a great big book, in double columns, by a night-light,
and the light that comes through a chink in the door. Then there
were the moths--tiger moths, yellow moths, and horrid cockchafers.
Louisa, my sister, would have the window open. I wanted it shut.
We fought every night of our lives over that window. Have you ever
seen a moth dyin' in a night-light?" she enquired.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott: winds you up, and you go till He stops you."
"Does I?" And Demi's brown eyes grew big and bright as he
took in the new thought. "Is I wounded up like the watch?"
"Yes, but I can't show you how, for it is done when we don't see."
Demi felt his back, as if expecting to find it like that of
the watch, and then gravely remarked, "I dess Dod does it when
I's asleep."
A careful explanation followed, to which he listened so attentively
that his anxious grandmother said, "My dear, do you think it wise
to talk about such things to that baby? He's getting great bumps
over his eyes, and learning to ask the most unanswerable questions."
Little Women |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: question whether there is a city in the world better provided with
the means of putting a stop to beginning conflagrations; and, in fact,
since these institutions, the city has never lost by fire more
than one or two houses at a time, and the flames have often been
extinguished before the house in which they began has been half consumed.
In 1739 arrived among us from Ireland the Reverend Mr. Whitefield,
who had made himself remarkable there as an itinerant preacher.
He was at first permitted to preach in some of our churches;
but the clergy, taking a dislike to him, soon refus'd him their pulpits,
and he was oblig'd to preach in the fields. The multitudes of all
sects and denominations that attended his sermons were enormous,
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
