| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: richest wines ever quaffed here below. Such is my religious faith,
though I grieve to confess that neither His Holiness the Pope nor His
Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury (whom I equally and profoundly
revere) will assent to its dissemination."
SPOOKER, n. A writer whose imagination concerns itself with
supernatural phenomena, especially in the doings of spooks. One of
the most illustrious spookers of our time is Mr. William D. Howells,
who introduces a well-credentialed reader to as respectable and
mannerly a company of spooks as one could wish to meet. To the terror
that invests the chairman of a district school board, the Howells
ghost adds something of the mystery enveloping a farmer from another
The Devil's Dictionary |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Miracle Mongers and Their Methods by Harry Houdini: body, from the action of heated iron and
intense fire, has been applied to the nobler
purpose of saving human life, and rescuing
property from the flames. The revival
and the improvement of this art we owe
to the benevolence and the ingenuity of
the Chevalier Aldini of Milan, who has
travelled through all Europe to present
this valuable gift to his species. Sir H.
Davy had long ago shown that a safety
lamp for illuminating mines, containing
Miracle Mongers and Their Methods |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: longings for the pleasures of wealth that awoke, though it was in
love's name that I now asked for them. In the evenings I grew
abstracted and moody, rapt in imaginings of the pleasures I could
enjoy if I were rich, and thoughtlessly gave expression to my desires
in answer to a tender questioning voice. I must have drawn a painful
sigh from her who had devoted herself to my happiness; for she, sweet
soul, felt nothing more cruelly than the thought that I wished for
something that she could not give me immediately. Oh! sir, a woman's
devotion is sublime!"
There was a sharp distress in the doctor's exclamation which seemed
prompted by some recollection of his own; he paused for a brief while,
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