| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: "To-day the books are to be tried
By experts and accountants who
Have been commissioned to go through
Our office here, to see if we
Have stolen injudiciously.
Please have the proper entries made,
The proper balances displayed,
Conforming to the whole amount
Of cash on hand -- which they will count.
I've long admired your punctual way --
Here at the break and close of day,
The Devil's Dictionary |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: little perched-up house of ours, discussing my difficulties with
Isabel and I think on the whole complicating them further in the
effort to simplify them to manageable and stateable elements.
Let me, nevertheless, attempt a rough preliminary analysis of this
confused process. A main strand is quite easily traceable. This
main strand is the story of my obvious life, my life as it must have
looked to most of my acquaintances. It presents you with a young
couple, bright, hopeful, and energetic, starting out under Altiora's
auspices to make a career. You figure us well dressed and active,
running about in motor-cars, visiting in great people's houses,
dining amidst brilliant companies, going to the theatre, meeting in
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Merry Men by Robert Louis Stevenson: On all this part of the coast, and especially near Aros, these
great granite rocks that I have spoken of go down together in
troops into the sea, like cattle on a summer's day. There they
stand, for all the world like their neighbours ashore; only the
salt water sobbing between them instead of the quiet earth, and
clots of sea-pink blooming on their sides instead of heather; and
the great sea conger to wreathe about the base of them instead of
the poisonous viper of the land. On calm days you can go wandering
between them in a boat for hours, echoes following you about the
labyrinth; but when the sea is up, Heaven help the man that hears
that cauldron boiling.
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