| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: men were but nine in all, and only five of them had fusees with
them; the rest had pistols and swords, indeed, but they were of
small use to them.
We took up seven of our men, and with difficulty enough too, three
of them being very ill wounded; and that which was still worse was,
that while we stood in the boat to take our men in, we were in as
much danger as they were in on shore; for they poured their arrows
in upon us so thick that we were glad to barricade the side of the
boat up with the benches, and two or three loose boards which, to
our great satisfaction, we had by mere accident in the boat. And
yet, had it been daylight, they are, it seems, such exact marksmen,
Robinson Crusoe |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: life out of me. I did not know what love was before I knew you.
Only the candor of your beautiful young life, only the purity of
that great soul of yours, could satisfy the requirements of an
exacting woman's heart. Dear love, how very often I have thrilled
with joy to think that in these nine long, swift years, my
jealousy has not been once awakened. All the flowers of your soul
have been mine, all your thoughts. There has not been the faintest
cloud in our heaven; we have not known what sacrifice is; we have
always acted on the impulses of our hearts. I have known
happiness, infinite for a woman. Will the tears that drench this
sheet tell you all my gratitude? I could wish that I had knelt to
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: distant or near by -- it seemed both. Its recurrence was
regular, but as slow as the tolling of a death knell. He
awaited each new stroke with impatience and -- he knew not
why -- apprehension. The intervals of silence grew
progressively longer; the delays became maddening. With
their greater infrequency the sounds increased in strength
and sharpness. They hurt his ear like the trust of a knife;
he feared he would shriek. What he heard was the ticking of
his watch.
He unclosed his eyes and saw again the water below him. "If
I could free my hands," he thought, "I might throw off the
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
