| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: shutting up of houses was perfectly insufficient for that end. Indeed it
seemed to have no manner of public good in it, equal or
proportionable to the grievous burden that it was to the particular
families that were so shut up; and, as far as I was employed by the
public in directing that severity, I frequently found occasion to see
that it was incapable of answering the end. For example, as I was
desired, as a visitor or examiner, to inquire into the particulars of
several families which were infected, we scarce came to any house
where the plague had visibly appeared in the family but that some of
the family were fled and gone. The magistrates would resent this, and
charge the examiners with being remiss in their examination or
A Journal of the Plague Year |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: CHAPTER 130
The Hat.
And now that at the proper time and place, after so long and wide a
preliminary cruise, Ahab,--all other whaling waters swept--seemed to
have chased his foe into an ocean-fold, to slay him the more securely
there; now, that he found himself hard by the very latitude and
longitude where his tormenting wound had been inflicted; now that a
vessel had been spoken which on the very day preceding had actually
encountered Moby Dick;--and now that all his successive meetings with
various ships contrastingly concurred to show the demoniac
indifference with which the white whale tore his hunters, whether
Moby Dick |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: had found the grandeurs of the intellect united with the simplicity of
a heart all new to love; and she saw, with untold happiness, that
these merits were contained in a form that pleased her. She thought
d'Arthez handsome, and perhaps he was. Though he had reached the age
of gravity (for he was now thirty-eight), he still preserved a flower
of youth, due to the sober and ascetic life which he had led. Like all
men of sedentary habits, and statesmen, he had acquired a certainly
reasonable embonpoint. When very young, he bore some resemblance to
Bonaparte; and the likeness still continued, as much as a man with
black eyes and thick, dark hair could resemble a sovereign with blue
eyes and scanty, chestnut hair. But whatever there once was of ardent
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