| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: beaten Union troops were pouring into the fortifications around
Washington, and the next day a horde of stragglers found their
way across the bridges of the Potomac into the city.
President Lincoln received the news quietly, as was his habit,
without any visible sign of distress or alarm, but he remained
awake and in his office all that Sunday night, listening to the
excited tales of congressmen and senators who, with undue
curiosity, had followed the army and witnessed some of the sights
and sounds of battle; and by dawn on Monday he had practically
made up his mind as to the probable result and what he must do in
consequence.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft: there squatted a stinking circle of the toadlike moonbeasts and
their almost-human slaves. Some of these slaves were heating curious
iron spears in the leaping flames, and at intervals applying their
white-hot points to three tightly trussed prisoners that lay writhing
before the leaders of the party. From the motions of their tentacles
Carter could see that the blunt-snouted moonbeasts were enjoying
the spectacle hugely, and vast was his horror when he suddenly
recognised the frantic meeping and knew that the tortured ghouls
were none other than the faithful trio which had guided him safely
from the abyss, and had thereafter set out from the enchanted
wood to find Sarkomand and the gate to their native deeps.
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: Reformers,--are to be cut off. As the justiciary of the county of
Tourine is quite distinct from that of the parliament of Paris, if you
are determined to know about your son, I advise you to go and see the
Chancelier Olivier, who has the management of this great trial under
orders from the lieutenant-general of the kingdom."
The poor old man, acting on this advice, went three times to see the
chancellor, standing in a long queue of persons waiting to ask mercy
for their friends. But as the titled men were made to pass before the
burghers, he was obliged to give up the hope of speaking to the
chancellor, though he saw him several times leave the house to go
either to the chateau or to the committee appointed by the Parliament,
|
