| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: habit of his own clear mind, and partly the result of the
training he gave himself in days of boyish poverty, when paper
and ink were luxuries almost beyond his reach, and the words he
wished to set down must be the best words, and the clearest and
shortest to express the ideas he had in view. This training of
thought before expression, of knowing exactly what he wished to
say before saying it, stood him in good stead all his life; but
only the mind of a great man, with a lofty soul and a poet's
vision; one who had suffered deeply and felt keenly; who carried
the burden of a nation on his heart, whose sympathies were as
broad and whose kindness was as great as his moral purpose was
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: still wander on without it, pass into other rooms and, only knowing
it was there behind him in case of need, see his way about,
visually project for his purpose a comparative clearness. It made
him feel, this acquired faculty, like some monstrous stealthy cat;
he wondered if he would have glared at these moments with large
shining yellow eyes, and what it mightn't verily be, for the poor
hard-pressed ALTER EGO, to be confronted with such a type.
He liked however the open shutters; he opened everywhere those Mrs.
Muldoon had closed, closing them as carefully afterwards, so that
she shouldn't notice: he liked - oh this he did like, and above
all in the upper rooms! - the sense of the hard silver of the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: Upon this discourse, however, and their promising, as above, to
endeavour to persuade their wives to embrace Christianity, he
married the two other couple; but Will Atkins and his wife were not
yet come in. After this, my clergyman, waiting a while, was
curious to know where Atkins was gone, and turning to me, said, "I
entreat you, sir, let us walk out of your labyrinth here and look;
I daresay we shall find this poor man somewhere or other talking
seriously to his wife, and teaching her already something of
religion." I began to be of the same mind; so we went out
together, and I carried him a way which none knew but myself, and
where the trees were so very thick that it was not easy to see
Robinson Crusoe |
