| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Confidence by Henry James: divided his attention pretty equally with the distracted,
the distorted, the almost ludicrous, image of his old
friend.
Angela wrote that Gordon had come back to see her the day
after his first visit, and had seemed greatly troubled
on learning that Bernard had taken himself off.
"It was because you insisted on it, of course," he said;
"it was not from feeling the justice of it himself." "I told him,"
said Angela, in her letter, "that I had made a point of it,
but that we certainly ought to give you a little credit for it.
But I could n't insist upon this, for fear of sounding a wrong
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tik-Tok of Oz by L. Frank Baum: nonsense. Your Queen and her officers are all
prisoners, having fallen into my power, so perhaps
you'll tell me what you mean to do."
"My orders were to con-quer you," replied Tik-
Tok, "and my ma-chin-er-y has done the best it
knows how to car-ry out those or-ders."
Ruggedo pounded on his gong and Kaliko appeared,
followed closely by General Guph.
"Take this copper man into the shops and set him
to work hammering gold," commanded the King.
"Being run by machinery he ought to be a steady
Tik-Tok of Oz |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: commonly thrust into somebody's pocket.
HANDKERCHIEF, n. A small square of silk or linen, used in various
ignoble offices about the face and especially serviceable at funerals
to conceal the lack of tears. The handkerchief is of recent
invention; our ancestors knew nothing of it and intrusted its duties
to the sleeve. Shakespeare's introducing it into the play of
"Othello" is an anachronism: Desdemona dried her nose with her skirt,
as Dr. Mary Walker and other reformers have done with their coattails
in our own day -- an evidence that revolutions sometimes go backward.
HANGMAN, n. An officer of the law charged with duties of the highest
dignity and utmost gravity, and held in hereditary disesteem by a
The Devil's Dictionary |
