| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: whistling of men, and there were the two boys coming back with the
cattle, which they had found trekking along all together. The lions
lifted their heads and listened, then bounded off without a sound--and I
fainted.
"The lions came back no more that night, and by the next morning my
nerves had got pretty straight again; but I was full of wrath when I
thought of all that I had gone through at the hands, or rather noses, of
those four brutes, and of the fate of my after-ox Kaptein. He was a
splendid ox, and I was very fond of him. So wroth was I that like a
fool I determined to attack the whole family of them. It was worthy of
a greenhorn out on his first hunting trip; but I did it nevertheless.
Long Odds |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: gristmills, while the miller sits with his hands in his pockets
underneath the willow-trees. They fill reservoirs out of which
great steam-engines pump the water to quench the thirst of Brooklyn.
Even the smaller streams tarry long enough in their seaward
sauntering to irrigate a few cranberry-bogs and so provide that
savoury sauce which makes the Long Island turkey a fitter subject
for Thanksgiving.
But this brook of which I speak did none of these useful things. It
was absolutely out of business.
There was not a mill, nor a reservoir, nor a cranberry-bog, on all
its course of a short mile. The only profitable affair it ever
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: considerable percentage of it is sometimes given away in what are known
as "benefactions."
PALMISTRY, n. The 947th method (according to Mimbleshaw's
classification) of obtaining money by false pretences. It consists in
"reading character" in the wrinkles made by closing the hand. The
pretence is not altogether false; character can really be read very
accurately in this way, for the wrinkles in every hand submitted
plainly spell the word "dupe." The imposture consists in not reading
it aloud.
PANDEMONIUM, n. Literally, the Place of All the Demons. Most of them
have escaped into politics and finance, and the place is now used as a
The Devil's Dictionary |
