| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: middle-aged Mr. Wakefield. Alas, what a mistake! Would Time but
await the close of our favorite follies, we should be young men,
all of us, and till Doomsday.
One evening, in the twentieth year since he vanished, Wakefield
is taking his customary walk towards the dwelling which he still
calls his own. It is a gusty night of autumn, with frequent
showers that patter down upon the pavement, and are gone before a
man can put up his umbrella. Pausing near the house, Wakefield
discerns, through the parlor windows of the second floor, the red
glow and the glimmer and fitful flash of a comfortable fire. On
the ceiling appears a grotesque shadow of good Mrs. Wakefield.
Twice Told Tales |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: effect therefrom, withheld our trade to obtain a redress of our grievances,
let us now try the alternative, by independantly redressing them ourselves,
and then offering to open the trade. The mercantile and reasonable part
in England, will be still with us; because, peace with trade, is preferable
to war without it. And if this offer be not accepted, other courts
may be applied to.
On these grounds I rest the matter. And as no offer hath
yet been made to refute the doctrine contained in the former
editions of this pamphlet, it is a negative proof, that either
the doctrine cannot be refuted, or, that the party in favour
of it are too numerous to be opposed. WHEREFORE, instead
Common Sense |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: Kingsway had to run down her pencil. She gazed intently at a notice
hanging on the gold-encrusted wall opposite. ". . . to say all kinds
of things," she added, writing each word with the painstaking of a
child. But, when she raised her eyes again to meditate the next
sentence, she was aware of a waitress, whose expression intimated that
it was closing time, and, looking round, Katharine saw herself almost
the last person left in the shop. She took up her letter, paid her
bill, and found herself once more in the street. She would now take a
cab to Highgate. But at that moment it flashed upon her that she could
not remember the address. This check seemed to let fall a barrier
across a very powerful current of desire. She ransacked her memory in
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