| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: to be informed when I should arrive, that he might carry me to Lord
Granville's, who was then President of the Council and wished to see
me as soon as possible. I agreed to go with him the next morning.
Accordingly Mr. Hanbury called for me and took me in his carriage
to that nobleman's, who receiv'd me with great civility; and after
some questions respecting the present state of affairs in America
and discourse thereupon, he said to me: "You Americans have wrong
ideas of the nature of your constitution; you contend that the king's
instructions to his governors are not laws, and think yourselves
at liberty to regard or disregard them at your own discretion.
But those instructions are not like the pocket instructions given
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar: fretting and fuming like a regular storm in miniature. As the
day wore on, and the rain did not abate, his mother kept a strong
watch upon him, for he tried many times to slip away.
Dinner came and went, and the gray soddenness of the skies
deepened into the blackness of coming night. Someone called
Titee to go to bed, and Titee was nowhere to be found.
Under the beds, in closets and corners, in such impossible places
as the soap-dish and water-pitcher even, they searched, but he
had gone as completely as if he had been spirited away. It was
of no use to call up the neighbors, he had never been near their
houses, they affirmed, so there was nothing to do but to go to
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Hellenica by Xenophon: Abydos, they selected the Chersonese as their base, and proceeded to
blockade him and his fleet of five-and-twenty vessels with the two-
and-thirty vessels under their joint command.
[4] And among the rest Iphicrates and Diotimus. See below, S. 25;
above, IV. viii. 39.
Meanwhile Gorgopas, returning from Ephesus, fell in with the Athenian
admiral Eunomus, and, shunning an encounter at the moment, sought
shelter in Aegina, which he reached a little before sunset; and at
once disembarking his men, set them down to their evening meal; whilst
Eunomus on his side, after hanging back for a little while, sailed
away. Night fell, and the Athenian, showing the customary signal light
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