| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Royalty Restored/London Under Charles II by J. Fitzgerald Molloy: a graciousness that served to obliterate the memory of his late
misfortune. Nor were the courtiers less warm in their greetings
than his majesty. The men hailed him as an agreeable companion;
the ladies intimated he need not wholly abandon those tender
diversions for which he had shown such natural talent and
received such high reputation at the court of Louis XIV. He
therefore promptly attached himself to the king, whose parties he
invariably attended, and whose pleasures he continually devised;
made friends with the most distinguished nobles, whom he charmed
by the grace of his manner and extravagance of his
entertainments; and took early opportunities of proving to the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Second Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it--
all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered
from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war,
insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--
seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation.
Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather
than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather
than let it perish. And the war came.
One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed
generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it.
These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew
Second Inaugural Address |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: Aubain, overwhelmed by recollections, would hang her head, while the
children were afraid to open their mouths. Then, "Why don't you go and
play?" their mother would say; and they would scamper off.
Paul would go to the old barn, catch birds, throw stones into the
pond, or pound the trunks of the trees with a stick till they
resounded like drums. Virginia would feed the rabbits and run to pick
the wild flowers in the fields, and her flying legs would disclose her
little embroidered pantalettes. One autumn evening, they struck out
for home through the meadows. The new moon illumined part of the sky
and a mist hovered like a veil over the sinuosities of the river.
Oxen, lying in the pastures, gazed mildly at the passing persons. In
A Simple Soul |
