| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: service of their great project, slowly elaborating their toils, much
as the ant-lion excavates its funnel in the sand and lies in wait at
the bottom for its victim. Suppose that no one strays, after all, into
that carefully constructed labyrinth? Suppose that the ant-lion dies
of hunger and thirst in her pit? Such things may be, but if any
heedless creature once enters in, it never comes out. All the wires
which could be pulled to induce action on the captain's part were
tried; appeals were made to the secret interested motives that always
come into play in such cases; they worked on Castanier's hopes and on
the weaknesses and vanity of human nature. Unluckily, he had praised
the daughter to her mother when he brought her back after a waltz, a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: frowning and stayed him, for all his eagerness. Then the
strong prince Telemachus spake among them again:
'Lo you now, even to the end of my days I shall be a coward
and a weakling, or it may be I am too young, and have as
yet no trust in my hands to defend me from such an one as
does violence without a cause. But come now, ye who are
mightier men than I, essay the bow and let us make an end
of the contest.'
Therewith he put the bow from him on the ground, leaning it
against the smooth and well-compacted doors, and the swift
shaft he propped hard by against the fair bow-tip, and then
The Odyssey |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Call of the Wild by Jack London: North. But Buck did not read the newspapers, and he did not know
that Manuel, one of the gardener's helpers, was an undesirable
acquaintance. Manuel had one besetting sin. He loved to play
Chinese lottery. Also, in his gambling, he had one besetting
weakness--faith in a system; and this made his damnation certain.
For to play a system requires money, while the wages of a
gardener's helper do not lap over the needs of a wife and numerous
progeny.
The Judge was at a meeting of the Raisin Growers' Association, and
the boys were busy organizing an athletic club, on the memorable
night of Manuel's treachery. No one saw him and Buck go off
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