| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: receive the training necessary to change them from valiant
citizens into good soldiers. Another call was therefore issued,
this time for men to serve three years or during the war, and
also for a large number of sailors to man the new ships that the
Government was straining every nerve to buy, build and otherwise
make ready.
More important, however, than soldiers trained or untrained, was
the united will of the people of the North; and most important of
all the steadfast and courageous soul of the man called to direct
the struggle. Abraham Lincoln, the poor frontier boy, the
struggling young lawyer, the Illinois politician, whom many, even
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Silas Marner by George Eliot: "Eh, my precious un," said Silas, "there isn't enough stones to
go all round; and as for you carrying, why, wi' your little arms you
couldn't carry a stone no bigger than a turnip. You're dillicate
made, my dear," he added, with a tender intonation--"that's what
Mrs. Winthrop says."
"Oh, I'm stronger than you think, daddy," said Eppie; "and if
there wasn't stones enough to go all round, why they'll go part o'
the way, and then it'll be easier to get sticks and things for the
rest. See here, round the big pit, what a many stones!"
She skipped forward to the pit, meaning to lift one of the stones
and exhibit her strength, but she started back in surprise.
Silas Marner |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: strength of love.
Augustine cared more for a look than for the finest picture. The only
sublime she knew was that of the heart. At last Theodore could not
resist the evidence of the cruel fact--his wife was insensible to
poetry, she did not dwell in his sphere, she could not follow him in
all his vagaries, his inventions, his joys and his sorrows; she walked
groveling in the world of reality, while his head was in the skies.
Common minds cannot appreciate the perennial sufferings of a being
who, while bound to another by the most intimate affections, is
obliged constantly to suppress the dearest flights of his soul, and to
thrust down into the void those images which a magic power compels him
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