| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain: over again. Often, of course, it was mere heedlessness,
mere want of reflection. Doubtless this may have been
the case in most instances, but it was not the less hard
to bar on that account--and after all, its bottom,
its groundwork, was selfishness. There is no avoiding
that conclusion. In the instance under consideration,
I did think the indecency of running on in that way might
occur to him; but no, the child was saved and he was glad,
that was sufficient--he cared not a straw for MY feelings,
or my loss of such a literary plum, snatched from my
very mouth at the instant it was ready to drop into it.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Yates Pride by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: yellowed lace which draped her bodice and put the rest in a great
china vase on the table. The roses were very fragrant, and
immediately the whole room was possessed by them.
A tiny, insistent cry came from a corner, and Lawton and Eudora
turned toward it. There stood the old wooden cradle in which
Eudora had been rocked to sleep, but over the clumsy hood Eudora
had tacked a fall of rich old lace and a great bow of soft pink
satin.
"He is waking up," said the man, in a hushed, almost reverent
voice.
Eudora nodded. She went toward the cradle, and the man followed.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll: indignantly to my other writings as a proof that I am incapable of
such a deed: I will not (as I might) point to the strong moral purpose
of this poem itself, to the arithmetical principles so cautiously
inculcated in it, or to its noble teachings in Natural History--I will
take the more prosaic course of simply explaining how it happened.
The Bellman, who was almost morbidly sensitive about appearances,
used to have the bowsprit unshipped once or twice a week to be revarnished,
and it more than once happened, when the time came for replacing it, that
no one on board could remember which end of the ship it belonged to.
They knew it was not of the slightest use to appeal to the Bellman about it--
he would only refer to his Naval Code, and read out in pathetic tones
The Hunting of the Snark |
