| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: Snake, and swung down and catched him up by the tail from the
ground, and cracked him same as a whip, and snapped his head off.
You've saw it done?" he said to the audience.
The audience nodded wearily.
"But the loose head flew agin me, and the fangs caught. I was
pretty sick for a while."
"It don't pay to be clumsy," said the first man. "If you'd
snapped the snake away from yu' instead of toward yu', its head
would have whirled off into the brush, same as they do with me."
"How like a knife-cut your scar looks!" said I.
"Don't it?" said the snake-snapper. "There's many that gets
The Virginian |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: He is not in his right mind, said Ctesippus; he is talking nonsense, and is
stark mad.
O Hippothales, I said, if you have ever made any verses or songs in honour
of your favourite, I do not want to hear them; but I want to know the
purport of them, that I may be able to judge of your mode of approaching
your fair one.
Ctesippus will be able to tell you, he said; for if, as he avers, the sound
of my words is always dinning in his ears, he must have a very accurate
knowledge and recollection of them.
Yes, indeed, said Ctesippus; I know only too well; and very ridiculous the
tale is: for although he is a lover, and very devotedly in love, he has
Lysis |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: The soldier tried if he might walk up and down, and the panther left
him free, contenting herself with following him with her eyes, less
like a faithful dog than a big Angora cat, observing everything and
every movement of her master.
When he looked around, he saw, by the spring, the remains of his
horse; the panther had dragged the carcass all that way; about two
thirds of it had been devoured already. The sight reassured him.
It was easy to explain the panther's absence, and the respect she had
had for him while he slept. The first piece of good luck emboldened
him to tempt the future, and he conceived the wild hope of continuing
on good terms with the panther during the entire day, neglecting no
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