| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain: Edward, when you think--nobody susp--["Eight hundred dollars!--
hurrah!--make it nine!--Mr. Parsons, did I hear you say--thanks!--
nine!--this noble sack of virgin lead going at only nine hundred
dollars, gilding and all-- come! do I hear--a thousand!--gratefully
yours!--did some one say eleven?--a sack which is going to be the
most celebrated in the whole Uni--"] "Oh, Edward" (beginning to
sob), "we are so poor!--but--but--do as you think best--do as you
think best."
Edward fell--that is, he sat still; sat with a conscience which was
not satisfied, but which was overpowered by circumstances.
Meantime a stranger, who looked like an amateur detective gotten up
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbot: and the four hundred and ninety-seventh descendant of
an Equilateral Triangle would necessarily be a Polygon with
five hundred sides. But this is not the case. Nature's Law
prescribes two antagonistic decrees affecting Circular propagation;
first, that as the race climbs higher in the scale of development,
so development shall proceed at an accelerated pace; second,
that in the same proportion, the race shall become less fertile.
Consequently in the home of a Polygon of four or five hundred sides
it is rare to find a son; more than one is never seen.
On the other hand the son of a five-hundred-sided Polygon has been
known to possess five hundred and fifty, or even six hundred sides.
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: Patriotism flies in arms about a hen; and if you comment upon the
colour of a Dutch umbrella, you have cast a stone against the
German Emperor. I give one instance, typical although extreme.
One who had returned from Tutuila on the mail cutter complained of
the vermin with which she is infested. He was suddenly and sharply
brought to a stand. The ship of which he spoke, he was reminded,
was a German ship.
John Caesar Godeffroy himself had never visited the islands; his
sons and nephews came, indeed, but scarcely to reap laurels; and
the mainspring and headpiece of this great concern, until death
took him, was a certain remarkable man of the name of Theodor
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