| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: directly towards the place, to the number of two hundred and fifty,
as near as our men could judge. Our army was but small indeed;
but, that which was worse, they had not arms for all their number.
The whole account, it seems, stood thus: first, as to men,
seventeen Spaniards, five Englishmen, old Friday, the three slaves
taken with the women, who proved very faithful, and three other
slaves, who lived with the Spaniards. To arm these, they had
eleven muskets, five pistols, three fowling-pieces, five muskets or
fowling-pieces which were taken by me from the mutinous seamen whom
I reduced, two swords, and three old halberds.
To their slaves they did not give either musket or fusee; but they
Robinson Crusoe |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: to confess you.'
"The mother had left the room; she could not hear her son condemned.
After she had gone, Joseph Cambremer, the uncle, brought in the rector
of Piriac, to whom Jacques would say nothing. He was shrewd; he knew
his father would not kill him until he had made his confession.
"'Thank you, and excuse us,' said Cambremer to the priest, when he saw
Jacques' obstinacy. 'I wished to give a lesson to my son, and will ask
you to say nothing about it. As for you,' he said to Jacques, 'if you
do not amend, the next offence you commit will be your last; I shall
end it without confession.'
"And he sent him to bed. The lad thought he could still get round his
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Faith of Men by Jack London: in terms of "trapsing" and "a little run," it is fair time to rouse
up and shake off the dream. Wherefore I looked about me; saw the
fly and, underneath, the pine boughs spread for the sleeping furs;
saw the grub sacks, the camera, the frosty breaths of the dogs
circling on the edge of the light; and, above, a great streamer of
the aurora, bridging the zenith from south-east to north-west. I
shivered. There is a magic in the Northland night, that steals in
on one like fevers from malarial marshes. You are clutched and
downed before you are aware. Then I looked to the snowshoes, lying
prone and crossed where he had flung them. Also I had an eye to my
tobacco pouch. Half, at least, of its goodly store had vamosed.
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