| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: Almighty God, cried my uncle Toby, looking up, and pressing the palms of
his hands close together--'tis not from our own strength, brother Shandy--a
centinel in a wooden centry-box might as well pretend to stand it out
against a detachment of fifty men.--We are upheld by the grace and the
assistance of the best of Beings.
--That is cutting the knot, said my father, instead of untying it,--But
give me leave to lead you, brother Toby, a little deeper into the mystery.
With all my heart, replied my uncle Toby.
My father instantly exchanged the attitude he was in, for that in which
Socrates is so finely painted by Raffael in his school of Athens; which
your connoisseurship knows is so exquisitely imagined, that even the
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: present work:
"This more reverent title had previously been forced upon him by
the religious scruples of the last newspaper in which a part of the
work had appeared, with the natural consequence that when it came out
in covers the country already had been flooded by its imitators with a
score of 'cynic' books -- _The Cynic's This_, _The Cynic's That_, and
_The Cynic's t'Other_. Most of these books were merely stupid, though
some of them added the distinction of silliness. Among them, they
brought the word 'cynic' into disfavor so deep that any book bearing
it was discredited in advance of publication."
Meantime, too, some of the enterprising humorists of the country
The Devil's Dictionary |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: mencing to show the effects of the strain under which
they had been forced to work without food or water,
and I think their weakening aided us almost as much
as the slight freshening of the wind.
Hooja must have commenced to realize that he was
going to lose us, for he again gave orders that we be
fired upon. Volley after volley of arrows struck about
us. The distance was so great by this time that most
of the arrows fell short, while those that reached us
were sufficiently spent to allow us to ward them off
with our paddles. However, it was a most exciting
Pellucidar |
