| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs: "Precious lot of good it will do us," I growled back.
"But my boy," he continued, "doesn't that temperature reading
mean anything to you? Why it hasn't gone up in six miles.
Think of it, son!"
"Yes, I'm thinking of it," I answered; "but what difference
will it make when our air supply is exhausted whether
the temperature is 153 degrees or 153,000? We'll be just
as dead, and no one will know the difference, anyhow."
But I must admit that for some unaccountable reason
the stationary temperature did renew my waning hope.
What I hoped for I could not have explained, nor did
At the Earth's Core |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: the limbs and muscles. But, either there was a smouldering fire
within him that consumed his vital energy, or the monotony that
would have dragged itself with benumbing effect over a mind
differently situated was no monotony to Clifford. Possibly, he
was in a state of second growth and recovery, and was constantly
assimilating nutriment for his spirit and intellect from sights,
sounds, and events which passed as a perfect void to persons more
practised with the world. As all is activity and vicissitude to
the new mind of a child, so might it be, likewise, to a mind that
had undergone a kind of new creation, after its long-suspended life.
Be the cause what it might, Clifford commonly retired to rest,
House of Seven Gables |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: Doak." Babbitt's democratic love for titles became a rich relish. "You know,
he's one of the biggest iron-men in England, Max. Horribly well-off.... Why,
hello, old Georgie! Say, Max, George Babbitt is getting fatter than I am!"
The chairman shouted, "Take your seats, fellows!"
"Shall we make a move, Charley?" Babbitt said casually to McKelvey.
"Right. Hello, Paul! How's the old fiddler? Planning to sit anywhere
special, George? Come on, let's grab some seats. Come on, Max. Georgie, I
read about your speeches in the campaign. Bully work!"
After that, Babbitt would have followed him through fire. He was enormously
busy during the dinner, now bumblingly cheering Paul, now approaching McKelvey
with "Hear, you're going to build some piers in Brooklyn," now noting how
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