| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Scarecrow of Oz by L. Frank Baum: Scarecrow was now the acknowledged head of the Army of
Conquest, and he would listen to no refusal. So off Pon
started for the King's castle, and the others accompanied
him as far as his hut, where they had decided to await
the gardener's boy's return.
I think it was because Pon had known the Scarecrow such
a short time that he lacked confidence in the straw man's
wisdom. It was easy to say: "We will conquer King Krewl,"
but when Pon drew near to the great castle he began to
doubt the ability of a straw-stuffed man, a girl, a
grasshopper and a frozen-hearted Princess to do it. As
 The Scarecrow of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Contrast by Royall Tyler: DIMPLE
Attentive to Miss Manly! For heaven's sake, if you
have no better opinion of my constancy, pay not so ill
a compliment to my taste.
LETITIA
Did I not see you whisper her to-day?
DIMPLE
Possibly I might--but something of so very trifling
a nature that I have already forgot what it was.
LETITIA
I believe she has not forgot it.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: Seine. Here he sat down on a stone, and I, sitting opposite to him,
saw the old man's hair gleaming like threads of silver in the
moonlight. The stillness was scarcely troubled by the sound of the
far-off thunder of traffic along the boulevards; the clear night air
and everything about us combined to make a strangely unreal scene.
"You talk of millions to a young man," I began, "and do you think that
he will shrink from enduring any number of hardships to gain them? Are
you not laughing at me?"
"May I die unshriven," he cried vehemently, "if all that I am about to
tell you is not true. I was one-and-twenty years old, like you at this
moment. I was rich, I was handsome, and a noble by birth. I began with
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