| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: But examine the passions and feelings of mankind,
Bring the doctrine of reconciliation to the touchstone of nature,
and then tell me, whether you can hereafter love, honor,
and faithfully serve the power that hath carried
fire and sword into your land? If yon cannot do all these,
then are you only deceiving yourselves, and by your delay
bringing ruin upon posterity. Your future connection with Britain,
whom you can neither love nor honor will be forced and unnatural,
and being formed only on the plan of present convenience,
will in a little time fall into a relapse more wretched than the first.
But if you say, you can still pass the violations over, then I ask,
Common Sense |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The People That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: attempted to turn them, and he seemed to have selected the
stallion to work upon, for he paid no attention to the others,
having intelligence enough to know that a lone dog could run
his legs off before he could round up four horses that didn't
wish to be rounded up. The stallion, however, had notions of
his own about being headed, and the result was as pretty a race
as one would care to see. Gad, how that horse could run! He seemed
to flatten out and shoot through the air with the very minimum
of exertion, and at his forefoot ran Nobs, doing his best to
turn him. He was barking now, and twice he leaped high against
the stallion's flank; but this cost too much effort and always
The People That Time Forgot |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: influence could prevail. But Queequeg vowed a vow. Alone in his
canoe, he paddled off to a distant strait, which he knew the ship
must pass through when she quitted the island. On one side was a
coral reef; on the other a low tongue of land, covered with mangrove
thickets that grew out into the water. Hiding his canoe, still
afloat, among these thickets, with its prow seaward, he sat down in
the stern, paddle low in hand; and when the ship was gliding by, like
a flash he darted out; gained her side; with one backward dash of his
foot capsized and sank his canoe; climbed up the chains; and throwing
himself at full length upon the deck, grappled a ring-bolt there, and
swore not to let it go, though hacked in pieces.
Moby Dick |
