| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Pupil by Henry James: be school himself - a bigger seminary than five hundred grazing
donkeys, so that, winning no prizes, the boy would remain
unconscious and irresponsible and amusing - amusing, because,
though life was already intense in his childish nature, freshness
still made there a strong draught for jokes. It turned out that
even in the still air of Morgan's various disabilities jokes
flourished greatly. He was a pale lean acute undeveloped little
cosmopolite, who liked intellectual gymnastics and who also, as
regards the behaviour of mankind, had noticed more things than you
might suppose, but who nevertheless had his proper playroom of
superstitions, where he smashed a dozen toys a day.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from O Pioneers! by Willa Cather: Cherry County; that's where the hay is so fine,
and the coyotes can scratch down to water."
At nine o'clock the next morning Alexandra
presented herself at the warden's office in the
State Penitentiary. The warden was a Ger-
man, a ruddy, cheerful-looking man who had
formerly been a harness-maker. Alexandra had
a letter to him from the German banker in
Hanover. As he glanced at the letter, Mr.
Schwartz put away his pipe.
 O Pioneers! |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: of mankind, every other sect supposing itself in possession
of all truth, and that those who differ are so far in the wrong;
like a man traveling in foggy weather, those at some distance
before him on the road he sees wrapped up in the fog, as well as
those behind him, and also the people in the fields on each side,
but near him all appears clear, tho' in truth he is as much
in the fog as any of them. To avoid this kind of embarrassment,
the Quakers have of late years been gradually declining the public
service in the Assembly and in the magistracy, choosing rather
to quit their power than their principle.
In order of time, I should have mentioned before, that having, in 1742,
 The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |