| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: character--what a number of fables, some beautiful, some impure, it had
impregnated and procured credence for--how it sustained every form of
polity and every system of laws, we may imagine what the effects must
have been of its disappearance. If it is possible for any man, it was
not, certainly, possible for a Greek, to feel himself connected by any
real bonds with his fellow-creatures around him, while he felt himself
utterly separated from any being above his fellow-creatures. But the
sense of that isolation would affect different minds very differently.
It drove the Epicurean to consider how he might make a world in which he
should live comfortably, without distracting visions of the past and
future, and the dread of those upper powers who no longer awakened in
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott: pause, he again advanced towards her, Alice, or her apparition,
moved or glided backwards towards the thicket, still keeping her
face turned towards him. The trees soon hid the form from his
sight; and, yielding to the strong and terrific
impression that the being which he had seen was not of this
world, the Master of Ravenswood remained rooted to the ground
whereon he had stood when he caught his last view of her. At
length, summoning up his courage, he advanced to the spot on
which the figure had seemed to be seated; but neither was there
pressure of the grass nor any other circumstance to induce him to
believe that what he had seen was real and substantial.
The Bride of Lammermoor |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: seem at his ease, and he went through the motions fairly well,
but at bottom he felt resentful toward all the three witnesses of
his exhibition; in fact, he felt so annoyed at them for having
witnessed it and noticed it that he almost forgot to feel annoyed
at himself for placing it before them. However, something presently
happened which made him almost comfortable, and brought him nearly back
to a state of charity and friendliness. This was a little spat between
the twins; not much of a spat, but still a spat; and before they got
far with it, they were in a decided condition of irritation while
pretending to be actuated by more respectable motives. By his help
the fire got warmed up to the blazing point, and he might have had the
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