| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Roads of Destiny by O. Henry: required him but a few moments to contrive the rope into an ingenious
nose-bridle, after the style of the Mexican /borsal/. In another he
was upon the horse's back and off at a splendid lope, giving the
animal free choice of direction. "He will take me somewhere," said
Chicken to himself.
It would have been a thing of joy, that untrammelled gallop over the
moonlit prairie, even to Chicken, who loathed exertion, but that his
mood was not for it. His head ached; a growing thirst was upon him;
the "somewhere" whither his lucky mount might convey him was full of
dismal peradventure.
And now he noted that the horse moved to a definite goal. Where the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: There were reports around the country, soon after that he was
sick and dying. Excess had brought on that frightful disease
that seems to throw the lurid shadows of a coming retribution back
into the present life. None could bear the horrors of that sick
room, when he raved and screamed, and spoke of sights which almost
stopped the blood of those who heard him; and, at his dying bed,
stood a stern, white, inexorable figure, saying, "Come! come! come!"
By a singular coincidence, on the very night that this vision
appeared to Legree, the house-door was found open in the morning,
and some of the negroes had seen two white figures gliding down
the avenue towards the high-road.
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: me, would not one think our neighbour the almanack-maker, was
crept out of his grave to take t'other peep at the stars in this
world, and shew how much he is improv'd in fortune-telling by
having taken a journey to the other?
Nay, the very reader, of our parish, a good sober, discreet
person, has sent two or three times for me to come and be buried
decently, or send him sufficient reasons to the contrary, if I
have been interr'd in any other parish, to produce my
certificate, as the act requires. My poor wife is almost run
distracted with being called Widow Partridge, when she knows its
false; and once a term she is cited into the court, to take out
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