| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: assert upon experience, having been so curious as to weigh and
measure them.
But a more dangerous accident happened to me in the same garden,
when my little nurse, believing she had put me in a secure place
(which I often entreated her to do, that I might enjoy my own
thoughts,) and having left my box at home, to avoid the trouble
of carrying it, went to another part of the garden with her
governess and some ladies of her acquaintance. While she was
absent, and out of hearing, a small white spaniel that belonged
to one of the chief gardeners, having got by accident into the
garden, happened to range near the place where I lay: the dog,
 Gulliver's Travels |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: and light and bliss rose to your young, wistful features, I had much
ado often to avoid straining you then and there to my heart."
"Don't talk any more of those days, sir," I interrupted, furtively
dashing away some tears from my eyes; his language was torture to
me; for I knew what I must do--and do soon--and all these
reminiscences, and these revelations of his feelings only made my
work more difficult.
"No, Jane," he returned: "what necessity is there to dwell on the
Past, when the Present is so much surer--the Future so much
brighter?"
I shuddered to hear the infatuated assertion.
 Jane Eyre |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: Of mighty toil the achievement, town on town
Up rugged precipices heaved and reared,
And rivers undergliding ancient walls.
Or should I celebrate the sea that laves
Her upper shores and lower? or those broad lakes?
Thee, Larius, greatest and, Benacus, thee
With billowy uproar surging like the main?
Or sing her harbours, and the barrier cast
Athwart the Lucrine, and how ocean chafes
With mighty bellowings, where the Julian wave
Echoes the thunder of his rout, and through
 Georgics |