| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey: hands dropped listlessly; and her head drooped in slow, final
acceptance of a hopeless fate.
"Jane. look there!" cried Venters, in despairing grief. "Need you
have told her? Where was all your kindness of heart? This girl
has had a wretched, lonely life. And I'd found a way to make her
happy. You've killed it. You've killed something sweet and pure
and hopeful, just as sure as you breathe."
"Oh, Bern! It was a slip. I never thought--I never thought!"
replied Jane. "How could I tell she didn't know?"
Lassiter suddenly moved forward, and with the beautiful light on
his face now strangely luminous, he looked at Jane and Venters
Riders of the Purple Sage |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: or eleven o'clock at night, I heard the tread of a flock of geese,
or else ducks, on the dry leaves in the woods by a pond-hole behind
my dwelling, where they had come up to feed, and the faint honk or
quack of their leader as they hurried off. In 1845 Walden froze
entirely over for the first time on the night of the 22d of
December, Flint's and other shallower ponds and the river having
been frozen ten days or more; in '46, the 16th; in '49, about the
31st; and in '50, about the 27th of December; in '52, the 5th of
January; in '53, the 31st of December. The snow had already covered
the ground since the 25th of November, and surrounded me suddenly
with the scenery of winter. I withdrew yet farther into my shell,
Walden |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: already admitted that this is the statesman's proper business. And we must
ask the same question about Pericles, and Cimon, and Miltiades, and
Themistocles. Whom did they make better? Nay, did not Pericles make the
citizens worse? For he gave them pay, and at first he was very popular
with them, but at last they condemned him to death. Yet surely he would be
a bad tamer of animals who, having received them gentle, taught them to
kick and butt, and man is an animal; and Pericles who had the charge of man
only made him wilder, and more savage and unjust, and therefore he could
not have been a good statesman. The same tale might be repeated about
Cimon, Themistocles, Miltiades. But the charioteer who keeps his seat at
first is not thrown out when he gains greater experience and skill. The
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