| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: emigrating. They were like those of so many others, vague and
unfounded; times were bad at home; they were said to have a turn for
the better in the States; a man could get on anywhere, he thought.
That was precisely the weak point of his position; for if he could
get on in America, why could he not do the same in Scotland? But I
never had the courage to use that argument, though it was often on
the tip of my tongue, and instead I agreed with him heartily adding,
with reckless originality, 'If the man stuck to his work, and kept
away from drink.'
'Ah!' said he slowly, 'the drink! You see, that's just my trouble.'
He spoke with a simplicity that was touching, looking at me at the
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne: him in earnest in his intention to penetrate to the centre of this
massive globe? Had I been listening to the mad speculations of a
lunatic, or to the scientific conclusions of a lofty genius? Where
did truth stop? Where did error begin?
I was all adrift amongst a thousand contradictory hypotheses, but I
could not lay hold of one.
Yet I remembered that I had been convinced, although now my
enthusiasm was beginning to cool down; but I felt a desire to start
at once, and not to lose time and courage by calm reflection. I had
at that moment quite courage enough to strap my knapsack to my
shoulders and start.
Journey to the Center of the Earth |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: headwaters of the Sangamon River to begin life on his own
account, and the day of his first inauguration, lay full thirty
years of toil, self-denial, patience; often of effort baffled, of
hope deferred; sometimes of bitter disappointment. Even with the
natural gift of great genius it required an average lifetime and
faithful unrelaxing effort, to transform the raw country
stripling into a fit ruler for this great nation.
Almost every success was balanced--sometimes overbalanced, by a
seeming failure. He went into the Black Hawk war a captain, and
through no fault of his own, came out a private. He rode to the
hostile frontier on horseback, and trudged home on foot. His
|
