| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: ARTLESSNESS, n. A certain engaging quality to which women attain by
long study and severe practice upon the admiring male, who is pleased
to fancy it resembles the candid simplicity of his young.
ASPERSE, v.t. Maliciously to ascribe to another vicious actions which
one has not had the temptation and opportunity to commit.
ASS, n. A public singer with a good voice but no ear. In Virginia
City, Nevada, he is called the Washoe Canary, in Dakota, the Senator,
and everywhere the Donkey. The animal is widely and variously
celebrated in the literature, art and religion of every age and
country; no other so engages and fires the human imagination as this
noble vertebrate. Indeed, it is doubted by some (Ramasilus, _lib.
The Devil's Dictionary |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Soul of a Bishop by H. G. Wells: if it were not for this strange drug that seems for a little
while to lift my mind above the confusion and personal
entanglements of every day, I doubt if even now I could be here.
I am here, passionate to hold this moment and keep the light. As
this inspiration passes, I shall go back, I know, to my home and
my place and my limitations. The littleness of men! The
forgetfulness of men! I want to know what my chief duty is, to
have it plain, in terms so plain that I can never forget.
"See in this world," he said, turning to the globe, "while
Chinese merchants and Turkish troopers, school-board boys and
Norwegian fishermen, half-trained nurses and Boer farmers are
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: was before them and the fascination could only grow; they would
take him page by page, as they would take one of the classics,
inhale him in slow draughts and let him sink all the way in. They
would scarce have got so wound up, I think, if they hadn't been in
love: poor Vereker's inner meaning gave them endless occasion to
put and to keep their young heads together. None the less it
represented the kind of problem for which Corvick had a special
aptitude, drew out the particular pointed patience of which, had he
lived, he would have given more striking and, it is to be hoped,
more fruitful examples. He at least was, in Vereker's words, a
little demon of subtlety. We had begun by disputing, but I soon
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