| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde: companion, a lad a year younger than himself. Him he kept for his
service, and when he had bathed himself in clear water, he opened a
great painted chest, and from it he took the leathern tunic and
rough sheepskin cloak that he had worn when he had watched on the
hillside the shaggy goats of the goatherd. These he put on, and in
his hand he took his rude shepherd's staff.
And the little page opened his big blue eyes in wonder, and said
smiling to him, 'My lord, I see thy robe and thy sceptre, but where
is thy crown?'
And the young King plucked a spray of wild briar that was climbing
over the balcony, and bent it, and made a circlet of it, and set it
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: warm and he snatched it out.
As he rose to the surface, gasping for breath, he saw that he
had been a long time under water; he was perceptibly farther
downstream -- nearer to safety. The soldiers had almost
finished reloading; the metal ramrods flashed all at once in
the sunshine as they were drawn from the barrels,
turned in the air, and thrust into their sockets. The two
sentinels fired again, independently and ineffectually.
The hunted man saw all this over his shoulder; he was now
swimming vigorously with the current. His brain was as
energetic as his arms and legs; he thought with the rapidity
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: I will concede nothing in honour to any man."
"Neither will I, Lord Fitzwater," said Sir Ralph, "in that sense:
but hear me. I was commissioned by the king to apprehend
the Earl of Huntingdon. I brought with me a party of soldiers,
picked and tried men, knowing that he would not lightly yield.
I sent my lieutenant with a detachment to surprise the earl's
castle in his absence, and laid my measures for intercepting
him on the way to his intended nuptials; but he seems to
have had intimation of this part of my plan, for he brought
with him a large armed retinue, and took a circuitous route,
which made him, I believe, somewhat later than his appointed hour.
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