| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: see the cyars that plain from his place, 'Yu' can see them,' he
said to me, 'but it is las' night's cyars you're lookin' at.'" At
this point the Virginian spoke severely to one of the horses. "Of
course," he then resumed to me, "that Yankee man did not mean
quite all he said.--You, Buck!" he again broke off suddenly to
the horse. "But Arizona, seh," he continued, "it cert'nly has a
mos' deceivin' atmospheah. Another man told me he had seen a lady
close one eye at him when he was two minutes hard run from her."
This time the Virginian gave Buck the whip.
"What effect," I inquired with a gravity equal to his own, "does
this extraordinary foreshortening have upon a quart of whiskey?"
 The Virginian |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor: found himself in the old posture. The ever-present thought of this
weakness was the only drop of bitterness in his cup, as he followed
the lonely path through the thickets.
Some spirit in the sweet, delicious freshness of the air, some
voice in the mellow babble of the stream, leaping in and out of
sight between the alders, some smile of light, lingering on the
rising corn-fields beyond the meadow and the melting purple of a
distant hill, reached to the seclusion of his heart. He was
soothed and cheered; his head lifted itself in the presentiment of
a future less lonely than the past, and the everlasting trouble
vanished from his eyes.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll: untidy. `Every single thing's crooked,' Alice thought to
herself, `and she's all over pins!--may I put your shawl
straight for you?' she added aloud.
`I don't know what's the matter with it!' the Queen said, in a
melancholy voice. `It's out of temper, I think. I've pinned it
here, and I've pinned it there, but there's no pleasing it!'
`It CAN'T go straight, you know, if you pin it all on one
side,' Alice said, as she gently put it right for her;
`and, dear me, what a state your hair is in!'
`The brush has got entangled in it!' the Queen said with a
sigh. `And I lost the comb yesterday.'
 Through the Looking-Glass |