| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: of the huts; and streams of flints and pebbles poured from the
platforms of the towers.
At last the rams broke the gates of Khamon and Tagaste. But the
Carthaginians had piled up such an abundance of materials on the
inside that the leaves did not open. They remained standing.
Then they drove augers against the walls; these were applied to the
joints of the blocks, so as to detach the latter. The engines were
better managed, the men serving them were divided into squads, and
they were worked from morning till evening without interruption and
with the monotonous precision of a weaver's loom.
Spendius returned to them untiringly. It was he who stretched the
 Salammbo |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Happy Prince and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde: wall, but I never cared to ask what lay beyond it, everything about
me was so beautiful. My courtiers called me the Happy Prince, and
happy indeed I was, if pleasure be happiness. So I lived, and so I
died. And now that I am dead they have set me up here so high that
I can see all the ugliness and all the misery of my city, and
though my heart is made of lead yet I cannot chose but weep."
"What! is he not solid gold?" said the Swallow to himself. He was
too polite to make any personal remarks out loud.
"Far away," continued the statue in a low musical voice, "far away
in a little street there is a poor house. One of the windows is
open, and through it I can see a woman seated at a table. Her face
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay: have nothing to do with it."
"I am not a man who speaks lightly. If you can perform this miracle,
you have my consent, once for all."
"Then we'll leave it like that for the present," said Tydomin sadly.
They proceeded on their way. Owing to the subsidence, Tydomin seemed
rather doubtful at first as to the right road, but by making a long
divergence they eventually got around to the other side of the newly
formed chasm. A little later on, in a narrow copse crowning a
miniature, insulated peak, they fell in with a man. He was resting
himself against a tree, and looked tired, overheated, and despondent.
He was young. His beardless expression bore an expression of unusual
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