| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: Crimmins had not moved; the apparition stunned him.
On she came, her eyes fixed on the president, till she reached the
table. Then she steadied herself for a moment, took a roll of
papers from her dress, and sank into a chair.
No one spoke. The crowd pressed closer. Those outside the rail
noiselessly mounted the benches and chairs, craning their necks.
Every eye was fixed upon her.
Slowly and carefully she unrolled the contract, spreading it out
before her, picked up a pen from the table, and without a word
wrote her name. Then she rose firmly, and walked steadily to the
door.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: men can discern through the glitter and dazzle of present prosperity
the dark outlines of approaching disasters, even though they may have
come up to our very gates, and are already within striking distance.
The yawning seam and corroded bolt conceal their defects from the mariner
until the storm calls all hands to the pumps. Prophets, indeed,
were abundant before the war; but who cares for prophets while
their predictions remain unfulfilled, and the calamities of which
they tell are masked behind a blinding blaze of national prosperity?
It is asked, said Henry Clay, on a memorable occasion,
Will slavery never come to an end? That question, said he,
was asked fifty years ago, and it has been answered by fifty years
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen: a time the paper must have been cheerful enough, but when I saw
it, paint, paper, and everything were most doleful. But the
room was full of horror; I felt my teeth grinding as I put my
hand on the door, and when I went in, I thought I should have
fallen fainting to the floor. However, I pulled myself
together, and stood against the end wall, wondering what on
earth there could be about the room to make my limbs tremble,
and my heart beat as if I were at the hour of death. In one
corner there was a pile of newspapers littered on the floor, and
I began looking at them; they were papers of three or four years
ago, some of them half torn, and some crumpled as if they had
The Great God Pan |
