| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Master of the World by Jules Verne: had accepted my letter from the Great Eyrie, five weeks before.
But this was not the general attitude toward the present letter,
neither in Washington, nor in the rest of America. To the few who
would have maintained that the document should not be taken
seriously, an immense majority would have responded. "This letter has
not the style nor the spirit of a jester. Only one man could have
written it; and that is the inventor of this unapproachable machine."
To most people this conclusion seemed indisputable owing to a curious
state of mind easily explainable. For all the strange facts of which
the key had hitherto been lacking, this letter furnished an
explanation. The theory now almost universally accepted was as
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: black shadow by the stone vase of flowers, one might crouch and
take a closer view of this gaping breach in the domestic defences,
the open window. For a while Mr. Ledbetter was as still as the night,
and then that insidious whisky tipped the balance. He dashed forward.
He went up the trellis with quick, convulsive movements, swung his
legs over the parapet of the balcony, and dropped panting in the
shadow even as he had designed. He was trembling violently, short
of breath, and his heart pumped noisily, but his mood was exultation.
He could have shouted to find he was so little afraid.
A happy line that he had learnt from Wills's "Mephistopheles" came
into his mind as he crouched there. "I feel like a cat on the tiles,"
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: bishops nor canons care how the poor people live or die, for
whom nevertheless Christ has died, and who are not permitted
to hear Him speak with them as the true Shepherd with His
sheep. This causes me to shudder and fear that at some time He
may send a council of angels upon Germany utterly destroying
us, like Sodom and Gomorrah, because we so wantonly mock Him
with the Council.
Besides such necessary ecclesiastical affairs, there would be
also in the political estate innumerable matters of great
importance to improve. There is the disagreement between the
princes and the states; usury and avarice have burst in like a
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