| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells: and heavy rain, which greatly retarded my work; but at last the raft
was completed.
I was delighted with it. But with a certain lack of practical sense
which has always been my bane, I had made it a mile or more from the sea;
and before I had dragged it down to the beach the thing had fallen
to pieces. Perhaps it is as well that I was saved from launching it;
but at the time my misery at my failure was so acute that for some
days I simply moped on the beach, and stared at the water and thought
of death.
I did not, however, mean to die, and an incident occurred that warned
me unmistakably of the folly of letting the days pass so,--for each
The Island of Doctor Moreau |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Hellenica by Xenophon: that which my colleagues yonder are producing? For my part I cannot
doubt but that, as things now are, they are saying to themselves, 'Our
allies muster thick and fast.' But were the real strength, the pith
and fibre of this city, kindly disposed to us, they would find it an
uphill task even to get a foothold anywhere in the country.
"Then, with regard to what he said of me and my propensity to be for
ever changing sides, let me draw your attention to the following
facts. Was it not the people itself, the democracy, who voted the
constitution of the Four Hundred? This they did, because they had
learned to think that the Lacedaemonians would trust any other form of
government rather than a democracy. But when the efforts of Lacedaemon
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: he added, "and people say I make you lead a lonely life. But I
swear you shall have your monument if you earn it."
"And I swear to be faithful," she returned, "if only for the sake
of having my little dog at my feet."
Not long afterward he went on business to the Quimper Assizes;
and while he was away his aunt, the widow of a great nobleman of
the duchy, came to spend a night at Kerfol on her way to the
pardon of Ste. Barbe. She was a woman of great piety and
consequence, and much respected by Yves de Cornault, and when she
proposed to Anne to go with her to Ste. Barbe no one could
object, and even the chaplain declared himself in favour of the
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