| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain: under an overhanging shelf and moved on. Presently
they came to a place where a little stream of water,
trickling over a ledge and carrying a limestone sediment
with it, had, in the slow-dragging ages, formed a laced
and ruffled Niagara in gleaming and imperishable stone.
Tom squeezed his small body behind it in order to
illuminate it for Becky's gratification. He found that
it curtained a sort of steep natural stairway which was
enclosed between narrow walls, and at once the ambi-
tion to be a discoverer seized him. Becky responded
to his call, and they made a smoke-mark for future
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: very few people feel about Mrs. Aubyn as you do--"
Glennard managed to set down his cup with a steady hand, but the
room swung round with him and he dropped into the nearest chair.
"As I do?" he repeated.
"I mean that very few people knew her when she lived in New York.
To most of the women who went to the reading she was a mere name,
too remote to have any personality. With me, of course, it was
different--"
Glennard gave her a startled look. "Different? Why different?"
"Since you were her friend--"
"Her friend!" He stood up impatiently. "You speak as if she had
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: spreading herds of goats. Here in Ithaca he runs even large
flocks of goats on the far end of the island, and they are in
the charge of excellent goat herds. Each one of these sends the
suitors the best goat in the flock every day. As for myself, I
am in charge of the pigs that you see here, and I have to keep
picking out the best I have and sending it to them."
This was his story, but Ulysses went on eating and drinking
ravenously without a word, brooding his revenge. When he had
eaten enough and was satisfied, the swineherd took the bowl from
which he usually drank, filled it with wine, and gave it to
Ulysses, who was pleased, and said as he took it in his hands,
The Odyssey |
