| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: and so it was as well employed one way as another.
However, I made me a table and a chair, as I observed above, in the
first place; and this I did out of the short pieces of boards that
I brought on my raft from the ship. But when I had wrought out
some boards as above, I made large shelves, of the breadth of a
foot and a half, one over another all along one side of my cave, to
lay all my tools, nails and ironwork on; and, in a word, to
separate everything at large into their places, that I might come
easily at them. I knocked pieces into the wall of the rock to hang
my guns and all things that would hang up; so that, had my cave
been to be seen, it looked like a general magazine of all necessary
 Robinson Crusoe |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: the bright sunshine of a crisp January day, beneath the trees, frosted
with clusters of white stars, and face all Paris on the spot where
last year we met with a gulf between us, the contrast calls up a
thousand fancies. Suppose, after all, your last letter should be right
in its forecast, and we are too presumptuous!
If I am ignorant of a mother's joys, you shall tell me about them; I
will learn by sympathy. But my imagination can picture nothing to
equal the rapture of love. You will laugh at my extravagance; but, I
assure you, that a dozen times in as many months the longing has
seized me to die at thirty, while life was still untarnished, amidst
the roses of love, in the embrace of passion. To bid farewell to the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: is the very last place to come to REST in, - and don't you be
afraid to bet on that!"
Says I -
"Sam, I'm as glad to hear it as I thought I'd be sorry. I'm glad I
come, now."
Says he -
"Cap'n, ain't you pretty physically tired?"
Says I -
"Sam, it ain't any name for it! I'm dog-tired."
"Just so - just so. You've earned a good sleep, and you'll get it.
You've earned a good appetite, and you'll enjoy your dinner. It's
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