| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: independence in the citizen, and diffuses a venal and servile
humor throughout the frame of society; that it stifles the
manlier virtues: nor shall I be at the pains to demonstrate that
this kind of traffic only creates an unproductive activity, which
agitates the country without adding to its resources: all these
things are obvious. But I would observe, that a government which
encourages this tendency risks its own tranquillity, and places
its very existence in great jeopardy. I am aware that at a time
like our own, when the love and respect which formerly clung to
authority are seen gradually to decline, it may appear necessary
to those in power to lay a closer hold on every man by his own
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: which one escapes at last. Here there was none. There could
probably be no concealment, certainly no explanation. In a few
days John Lambert would return, and then the storm must break.
He was probably a stern, jealous man, whose very dulness, once
aroused, would be more formidable than if he had possessed
keener perceptions.
Still her thoughts did not dwell on Philip. He was simply a
part of that dull mass of pain that beset her and made her
feel, as she had felt when drowning, that her heart had left
her breast and nothing but will remained. She felt now, as
then, the capacity to act with more than her accustomed
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne: sleep.
The next day the weather was splendid. The sky and the sea had sunk
into sudden repose. Every trace of the awful storm had disappeared.
The exhilarating voice of the Professor fell upon my ears as I awoke;
he was ominously cheerful.
"Well, my boy," he cried, "have you slept well?"
Would not any one have thought that we were still in our cheerful
little house on the Königstrasse and that I was only just coming down
to breakfast, and that I was to be married to Gräuben that day?
Alas! if the tempest had but sent the raft a little more east, we
should have passed under Germany, under my beloved town of Hamburg,
Journey to the Center of the Earth |
