| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz by L. Frank Baum: without him. In this book Dorothy had to take her kitten with her
instead of her dog; but in the next Oz book, if I am permitted to
write one, I intend to tell a good deal about Toto's further history.
Princess Ozma, whom I love as much as my readers do, is again
introduced in this story, and so are several of our old friends of Oz.
You will also become acquainted with Jim the Cab-Horse, the Nine Tiny
Piglets, and Eureka, the Kitten. I am sorry the kitten was not as
well behaved as she ought to have been; but perhaps she wasn't brought
up properly. Dorothy found her, you see, and who her parents were
nobody knows.
I believe, my dears, that I am the proudest story-teller that ever
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: lack of a document. A day came when Mme. de la Garde would fain have
signed herself "Mme. Castanier." The cashier was put out by this.
"So you do not love me well enough to marry me?" she said.
Castanier did not answer; he was absorbed by his thoughts. The poor
girl resigned herself to her fate. The ex-dragoon was in despair.
Naqui's heart softened towards him at the sight of his trouble; she
tried to soothe him, but what could she do when she did not know what
ailed him? When Naqui made up her mind to know the secret, although
she never asked him a question, the cashier dolefully confessed to the
existence of a Mme. Castanier. This lawful wife, a thousand times
accursed, was living in a humble way in Strasbourg on a small property
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: and what of greatness and position a person got, he
got mainly by achievement, not by birth. But then
the Church came to the front, with an axe to grind;
and she was wise, subtle, and knew more than one
way to skin a cat -- or a nation; she invented "divine
right of kings," and propped it all around, brick by
brick, with the Beatitudes -- wrenching them from
their good purpose to make them fortify an evil one;
she preached (to the commoner) humility, obedience
to superiors, the beauty of self-sacrifice; she preached
(to the commoner) meekness under insult; preached
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
