| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: why every thern upon Barsoom should yearn to spill the blood of
the blasphemer, the sacrilegist; but let us mix wisdom with our
righteous hate. The Prince of Helium is bound upon an errand which
we ourselves, but a moment since, were wishing that we might undertake.
"Let him go then and slay the black. When he returns we shall
still be here to bar his way to the outer world, and thus we shall
have rid ourselves of two enemies, nor have incurred the
displeasure of the Father of Therns."
As he spoke I could not but note the crafty glint in his evil eyes,
The Warlord of Mars |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: 'In 1827 we find him on board the "President," a boat of two
hundred and eighty-five tons burden, and plying between Smithland
and New Orleans. Thence he joined the "Jubilee" in 1828,
and on this boat he did his first piloting in the St. Louis trade;
his first watch extending from Herculaneum to St. Genevieve.
On May 26, 1836, he completed and left Pittsburgh in charge
of the steamer "Prairie," a boat of four hundred tons, and the
first steamer with a STATE-ROOM CABIN ever seen at St. Louis.
In 1857 he introduced the signal for meeting boats, and which has,
with some slight change, been the universal custom of this day;
in fact, is rendered obligatory by act of Congress.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: "No, no! your manner might be only the ease which your engagement
to another man would give. I left you in this belief; and yet,
I was determined to see you again. My spirits rallied with the morning,
and I felt that I had still a motive for remaining here."
At last Anne was at home again, and happier than any one in that house
could have conceived. All the surprise and suspense, and every other
painful part of the morning dissipated by this conversation,
she re-entered the house so happy as to be obliged to find an alloy
in some momentary apprehensions of its being impossible to last.
An interval of meditation, serious and grateful, was the best corrective
of everything dangerous in such high-wrought felicity; and she went
Persuasion |
