| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: thought I would give up and let the thing go; so twice I started to
leave, but immediately I thought what a figure I should cut
stepping out amongst the redeemed in such a rig, and that made me
hang back and come to anchor again. People got to eying me -
clerks, you know - wondering why I didn't get under way. I
couldn't stand this long - it was too uncomfortable. So at last I
plucked up courage and tipped the head clerk a signal. He says -
"What! you here yet? What's wanting?"
Says I, in a low voice and very confidential, making a trumpet with
my hands at his ear -
"I beg pardon, and you mustn't mind my reminding you, and seeming
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Inaugural Address by John F. Kennedy: our present course. . .both sides overburdened by the cost of modern weapons,
both rightly alarmed by the steady spread of the deadly atom, yet both racing
to alter that uncertain balance of terror that stays the hand of Mankind's
final war.
So let us begin anew. . .remembering on both sides that civility
is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof.
Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.
Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring
those problems which divide us. Let both sides, for the first time,
formulate serious and precise proposals for the inspection and
control of arms. . .and bring the absolute power to destroy
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Whirligigs by O. Henry: miles away. Sam was a hardened person of about twenty-
five, with a reputation for going home in the dark with
perfect equanimity, though often with reluctance.
Over in the Creek Nation was a family bearing the
name of Tatum. I was told that the Durkees and Tatums
had been feuding for years. Several of each family had
bitten the grass, and it was expected that more Nebuchad-
nezzars would follow. A younger generation of each family
was growing up, and the grass was keeping pace with them.
But I gathered that they had fought fairly; that they had
not lain in cornfields and aimed at the division of their
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