| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: the center of the bridge; they merely blockaded the two ends
of the foot planking that traversed it.
Beyond one of the sentinels nobody was in sight; the railroad
ran straight away into a forest for a hundred yards, then,
curving, was lost to view. Doubtless there was an outpost
farther along. The other bank of the stream was open ground
-- a gentle slope topped with a stockade of vertical tree
trunks, loopholed for rifles, with a single embrasure
through which protruded the muzzle of a brass cannon
commanding the bridge. Midway up the slope between the
bridge and fort were the spectators -- a single company of
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Sir John Mandeville: journeys in largeness. And between Egypt and Nubia it hath well a
twelve journeys of desert. And men of Nubia be Christian, but they
be black as the Moors for great heat of the sun.
In Egypt there be five provinces: that one is Sahythe; that other
Demeseer; another Resith, that is an isle in the Nile; another
Alexandria; and another the land of Damietta. That city was wont
to be right strong, but it was twice won of the Christian men, and
therefore after that the Saracens beat down the walls; and with the
walls the tower thereof, the Saracens made another city more far
from the sea, and clept it the new Damietta; so that now no man
dwelleth at the rather town of Damietta. At that city of Damietta
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: with the "triumphs of science," and shall look merely to the
greatest comfort (call it not happiness) of the greatest number; and
like the debased Jews of old, "having found the life of their hand,
be therewith content," no matter in what mud-hole of slavery and
superstition.
But one hope there is, and more than a hope--one certainty, that
however satisfied enlightened public opinion may become with the
results of science, and the progress of the human race, there will
be always a more enlightened private opinion or opinions, which will
not be satisfied therewith at all; a few men of genius, a few
children of light, it may be a few persecuted, and a few martyrs for
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