| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: forming for myself fairy palaces, upon the verge of the grave I
turn my eyes backward upon the days and manners of my better
time; and the sad, yet soothing recollections come so close and
interesting, that I almost think it sacrilege to be wiser or more
rational or less prejudiced than those to whom I looked up in my
younger years."
"I think I now understand what you mean," I answered, "and can
comprehend why you should occasionally prefer the twilight of
illusion to the steady light of reason."
"Where there is no task," she rejoined, "to be performed, we may
sit in the dark if we like it; if we go to work, we must ring for
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Burning Daylight by Jack London: yesterday! Only a chechaquo'd fool around that pasture long
enough to fill a pan of dirt. You don't catch me at any such
foolishness. One look was enough for me. We're pulling on in
the morning for Circle City. I ain't never had faith in this
Upper Country. Head-reaches of the Tanana is good enough for me
from now on, and mark my words, when the big strike comes, she'll
come down river. Johnny, here, staked a couple of miles below
Discovery, but he don't know no better." Johnny looked
shamefaced.
"I just did it for fun," he explained. "I'd give my chance in
the creek for a pound of Star plug."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell: that was proudly brown and disdained to match the rest of her
hair. She had a round, highly colored face in which was combined
good-natured shrewdness and the habit of command. Mrs. Elsing was
younger, a thin frail woman, who had been a beauty, and about her
there still clung a faded freshness, a dainty imperious air.
These two ladies with a third, Mrs. Whiting, were the pillars of
Atlanta. They ran the three churches to which they belonged, the
clergy, the choirs and the parishioners. They organized bazaars
and presided over sewing circles, they chaperoned balls and
picnics, they knew who made good matches and who did not, who
drank secretly, who were to have babies and when. They were
Gone With the Wind |
