| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Poor and Proud by Oliver Optic: "You don't say so? Did he give you a testimonial?"
"No; he gave me half a dollar."
The clerk laughed heartily at Katy's misapprehension of his word,
and his eye twinkled with mischief. It was plain that he was not
a great admirer of molasses candy, and that he only wanted to
amuse himself at Katy's expense.
"You know what they do with quack medicines--don't you?"
"Yes, I do; some folks are fools enough to take them," replied
Katy, smartly.
"That's a fact; but you don't understand me. Dr. Swindlehanger,
round the corner, would give the mayor a hundred dollars to say
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: The fainter and farther away the scowmen's curses drifted,
the higher Mr. Bixby lifted his voice and the weightier his
adjectives grew. When he closed the window he was empty.
You could have drawn a seine through his system and not caught curses
enough to disturb your mother with. Presently he said to me in
the gentlest way--
'My boy, you must get a little memorandum book, and every time I
tell you a thing, put it down right away. There's only one way
to be a pilot, and that is to get this entire river by heart.
You have to know it just like A B C.'
That was a dismal revelation to me; for my memory was never
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: The lineal tilth and habits of the spot,
What every region yields, and what denies.
Here blithelier springs the corn, and here the grape,
There earth is green with tender growth of trees
And grass unbidden. See how from Tmolus comes
The saffron's fragrance, ivory from Ind,
From Saba's weakling sons their frankincense,
Iron from the naked Chalybs, castor rank
From Pontus, from Epirus the prize-palms
O' the mares of Elis.
Such the eternal bond
Georgics |
