| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: for Mrs. Gardener had gone to Omaha for a week. Johnnie had been
having drinks with the guests until he was rather absent-minded. It
was Mrs. Gardener who ran the business and looked after everything.
Her husband stood at the desk and welcomed incoming travellers.
He was a popular fellow, but no manager.
Mrs. Gardener was admittedly the best-dressed woman in Black Hawk,
drove the best horse, and had a smart trap and a little
white-and-gold sleigh. She seemed indifferent to her possessions,
was not half so solicitous about them as her friends were.
She was tall, dark, severe, with something Indian-like
in the rigid immobility of her face. Her manner was cold,
My Antonia |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Art of War by Sun Tzu: (afterwards First Emperor) in 227 B.C. The tears of all flowed
down like rain as he bade them farewell and uttered the following
lines: "The shrill blast is blowing, Chilly the burn; Your
champion is going--Not to return." [1] ]
But let them once be brought to bay, and they will display the
courage of a Chu or a Kuei.
[Chu was the personal name of Chuan Chu, a native of the Wu
State and contemporary with Sun Tzu himself, who was employed by
Kung-tzu Kuang, better known as Ho Lu Wang, to assassinate his
sovereign Wang Liao with a dagger which he secreted in the belly
of a fish served up at a banquet. He succeeded in his attempt,
The Art of War |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain: reporters began to arrive from everywhere to verify the sack and its
history and write the whole thing up anew, and make dashing free-
hand pictures of the sack, and of Richards's house, and the bank,
and the Presbyterian church, and the Baptist church, and the public
square, and the town-hall where the test would be applied and the
money delivered; and damnable portraits of the Richardses, and
Pinkerton the banker, and Cox, and the foreman, and Reverend
Burgess, and the postmaster--and even of Jack Halliday, who was the
loafing, good-natured, no-account, irreverent fisherman, hunter,
boys' friend, stray-dogs' friend, typical "Sam Lawson" of the town.
The little mean, smirking, oily Pinkerton showed the sack to all
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg |
