| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: yet outside their lines; my wife and little ones are still
beyond the invader's farthest advance."
As these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words,
were flashed into the doomed man's brain rather than evolved
from it the captain nodded to the sergeant. The sergeant
stepped aside.
II
Peyton Fahrquhar was a well to do planter, of an old and
highly respected Alabama family. Being a slave owner and
like other slave owners a politician, he was naturally an
original secessionist and ardently devoted to the Southern
 An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain: year ole, en she tuck de sk'yarlet fever, en had a
powful rough spell; but she got well, en one day she
was a-stannin' aroun', en I says to her, I says:
"'Shet de do'.'
"She never done it; jis' stood dah, kiner smilin' up
at me. It make me mad; en I says agin, mighty loud,
I says:
"'Doan' you hear me? Shet de do'!'
"She jis stood de same way, kiner smilin' up. I
was a-bilin'! I says:
"'I lay I MAKE you mine!'
 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: "Oh! are you there?" she said.
"Yes."
"What are you looking at?"
"A pretty question! You have torn me from the contemplation of Nature.
Tell me, countess, will you go for a walk in the woods this morning
before breakfast?"
"What an idea! You know I have a horror of walking."
"We will only walk a little way; I'll drive you in the tilbury and
take Joseph to hold the horses. You have never once set foot in your
forest; and I have just noticed something very curious, a phenomenon;
there are spots where the tree-tops are the color of Florentine
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