| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Whirligigs by O. Henry: hued cigars upon the table. Lawyer Gooch knew the
brand. He thawed just enough to accept the invitation
to smoke.
"You are a divorce lawyer," said the cardless visitor.
This time there was no interrogation in his voice. Nor
did his words constitute a simple assertion. They formed
a charge -- a denunciation -- as one would say to a dog:
"You are a dog." Lawyer Gooch was silent under the
imputation.
"You handle," continued the visitor, "all the various
ramifications of busted-up connubiality. You are a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Black Dwarf by Walter Scott: whole days for lack of food, and, finally, to die, inch by inch,
of famine--it were a consummation worthy of the race!"
"Your deeds are better, Elshie, than your words," answered
Earnscliff; "you labour to preserve the race whom your
misanthropy slanders."
"I do; but why?--Hearken. You are one on whom I look with the
least loathing, and I care not, if, contrary to my wont, I waste
a few words in compassion to your infatuated blindness. If I
cannot send disease into families, and murrain among the herds,
can I attain the same end so well as by prolonging the lives of
those who can serve the purpose of destruction as effectually?--
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley: said, If it has blown up once, that is all the more reason that it
should not blow up again. And they were few in number: but they
only said, The more the merrier, but the fewer the better fare.
However, that was not quite true; for all the flapdoodle-trees were
killed by the volcano, and they had eaten all the roast pigs, who,
of course, could not be expected to have little ones. So they had
to live very hard, on nuts and roots which they scratched out of
the ground with sticks. Some of them talked of sowing corn, as
their ancestors used to do, before they came into the land of
Readymade; but they had forgotten how to make ploughs (they had
forgotten even how to make Jews' harps by this time), and had eaten
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