| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Betty Zane by Zane Grey: gradually their fears were dispelled and they began to think the alarm had
been a false one.
All this time Alfred Clarke was recovering his health and strength. The day
came when he was able to leave his bed and sit by the window. How glad it made
him feel to look out on the green woods and the broad, winding river; how
sweet to his ears were the songs of the birds; how soothing was the drowsy hum
of the bees in the fragrant honeysuckle by his window. His hold on life had
been slight and life was good. He smiled in pitying derision as he remembered
his recklessness. He had not been in love with life. In his gloomy moods he
had often thought life was hardly worth the living. What sickly sentiment! He
had been on the brink of the grave, but he had been snatched back from the
Betty Zane |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: apprentices very soon began to feel it to be degrading to work
with me. They began to put on high looks, and to talk
contemptuously and maliciously of _"the Niggers;"_ saying, that
"they would take the country," that "they ought to be killed."
Encouraged by the cowardly workmen, who, knowing me to be a
slave, made no issue with Mr. Gardiner about my being there,
these young men did their utmost to make it impossible for me to
stay. They seldom called me to do any thing, without coupling
the call with a curse, and Edward North, the biggest in every
thing, rascality included, ventured to strike me, whereupon I
picked him up, and threw <242>him into the dock. Whenever any of
My Bondage and My Freedom |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tales and Fantasies by Robert Louis Stevenson: conjuring with a tea-pot and a cosy; and, behold! there was
another person present, a large, portly, whiskered man of a
very comfortable and respectable air, who now rose from his
seat and came forward, holding out his hand.
'Good-morning, father,' said he.
Of the contention of feeling that ran high in Mr. Nicholson's
starched bosom, no outward sign was visible; nor did he delay
long to make a choice of conduct. Yet in that interval he
had reviewed a great field of possibilities both past and
future; whether it was possible he had not been perfectly
wise in his treatment of John; whether it was possible that
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