| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum: his neck, and presently a tiny grey mouse popped from a near-by hole and
advanced fearlessly toward them. For the Tin Woodman had once saved her
life, and the Queen of the Field Mice knew he was to be trusted."
"Good day, your Majesty, said Nick, politely addressing the mouse; "I trust
you are enjoying good health?"
"Thank you, I am quite well," answered the Queen, demurely, as she sat up
and displayed the tiny golden crown upon her head. "Can I do anything to
assist my old friends?"
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"You can, indeed," replied the Scarecrow, eagerly. "Let me, I intreat you,
take a dozen of your subjects with me to the Emerald City."
The Marvelous Land of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: down, though it appears on the objects that surround us in moments
when life sits lightly and our hearts are full. The loveliest scenery
is that we make ourselves. What man with any poesy in him does not
remember some mere mass of rock, which holds, it may be, a greater
place in his memory than the celebrated landscapes of other lands,
sought at great cost. Beside that rock, tumultuous thoughts! There a
whole life evolved; there all fears dispersed; there the rays of hope
descended to the soul! At this moment, the sun, sympathizing with
these thoughts of love and of the future, had cast an ardent glow upon
the savage flanks of the rock; a few wild mountain flowers were
visible; the stillness and the silence magnified that rugged pile,--
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne: already ventured into the midst of these Antarctic seas before.
On the 16th of March, however, the ice-fields absolutely blocked our road.
It was not the iceberg itself, as yet, but vast fields cemented
by the cold. But this obstacle could not stop Captain Nemo:
he hurled himself against it with frightful violence. The Nautilus entered
the brittle mass like a wedge, and split it with frightful crackings.
It was the battering ram of the ancients hurled by infinite strength.
The ice, thrown high in the air, fell like hail around us.
By its own power of impulsion our apparatus made a canal for itself;
some times carried away by its own impetus, it lodged on the ice-field,
crushing it with its weight, and sometimes buried beneath it,
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea |
