| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: to my uncle Toby, as he went along, Amicus Plato; that is, Dinah was my
aunt;--sed magis amica veritas--but Truth is my sister.
This contrariety of humours betwixt my father and my uncle, was the source
of many a fraternal squabble. The one could not bear to hear the tale of
family disgrace recorded,--and the other would scarce ever let a day pass
to an end without some hint at it.
For God's sake, my uncle Toby would cry,--and for my sake, and for all our
sakes, my dear brother Shandy,--do let this story of our aunt's and her
ashes sleep in peace;--how can you,--how can you have so little feeling and
compassion for the character of our family?--What is the character of a
family to an hypothesis? my father would reply.--Nay, if you come to that--
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey: that women and children were extremely scarce in the West.
Straggling bits of forest--yellow pines, the driver called the trees--began
to encroach upon the burned-over and arid barren land. To Carley these
groves, by reason of contrast and proof of what once was, only rendered the
landscape more forlorn and dreary. Why had these miles and miles of forest
been cut? By money grubbers, she supposed, the same as were devastating the
Adirondacks. Presently, when the driver had to halt to repair or adjust
something wrong with the harness, Carley was grateful for a respite from
cold inaction. She got out and walked. Sleet began to fall, and when she
resumed her seat in the vehicle she asked the driver for the blanket to
cover her. The smell of this horse blanket was less endurable than the
The Call of the Canyon |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: was beginning to dawn there; his uncle had gone up to his rooms; the
last poor wretch whose misery the judge had relieved was departing,
and Lavienne's money bag was empty.
"Well, how are they going on?" asked the old lawyer, as the doctor
came in.
"The man is dead," replied Bianchon; "the girl will get over it."
Since the eye and hand of a woman had been lacking, the flat in which
Popinot lived had assumed an aspect in harmony with its master's. The
indifference of a man who is absorbed in one dominant idea had set its
stamp of eccentricity on everything. Everywhere lay unconquerable
dust, every object was adapted to a wrong purpose with a pertinacity
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