| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: go down between two ties. The arrangement commended itself
to his judgement as simple and effective. His face had not
been covered nor his eyes bandaged. He looked a moment at
his "unsteadfast footing," then let his gaze wander to the
swirling water of the stream racing madly beneath his feet.
A piece of dancing driftwood caught his attention and his
eyes followed it down the current. How slowly it appeared
to move! What a sluggish stream!
He closed his eyes in order to fix his last thoughts upon his
wife and children. The water, touched to gold by the early
sun, the brooding mists under the banks at some distance down
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: know, except about a few butterflies. Look here! Here are more
whales coming. Don't be frightened. They are only little ones,
mackerel-hunting, like the big one.
What pretty smooth things, turning head over heels, and saying,
"Hush, Hush!"
They don't really turn clean over; and that "Hush" is their way of
breathing.
Are they the young ones of that great monster?
No; they are porpoises. That big one is, I believe, a bottle-
nose. But if you want to know about the kinds of whales, you must
ask Dr. Flower at the Royal College of Surgeons, and not me: and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Paz by Honore de Balzac: "I thought you had a noble soul,"--the words still rang in his ears.
"A year ago," he said to himself, "she thought me a hero who could
fight the Russians single-handed!"
He thought of leaving the hotel Laginski, and taking service with the
spahis and getting killed in Africa, but the same great fear checked
him. "Without me," he thought, "what would become of them? they would
soon be ruined. Poor countess! what a horrible life it would be for
her if she were reduced to even thirty thousand francs a year. No,
since all is lost for me in this world,--courage! I will keep on as I
am."
Every one knows that since 1830 the carnival in Paris has undergone a
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