| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Inaugural Address by John F. Kennedy: each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony
to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered
the call to service surround the globe. Now the trumpet summons us again. . .
not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need. . .not as a call to battle. . .
though embattled we are. . .but a call to bear the burden of a long
twilight struggle. . .year in and year out, rejoicing in hope,
patient in tribulation. . .a struggle against the common enemies of man:
tyranny. . .poverty. . .disease. . .and war itself. Can we forge against
these enemies a grand and global alliance. . .North and South. . .
East and West. . .that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind?
Will you join in that historic effort?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Professor by Charlotte Bronte: home of horrors. No wonder her spells THEN had power; but NOW,
when my course was widening, my prospect brightening; when my
affections had found a rest; when my desires, folding wings,
weary with long flight, had just alighted on the very lap of
fruition, and nestled there warm, content, under the caress of a
soft hand--why did hypochondria accost me now?
I repulsed her as one would a dreaded and ghastly concubine
coming to embitter a husband's heart toward his young bride; in
vain; she kept her sway over me for that night and the next day,
and eight succeeding days. Afterwards, my spirits began slowly to
recover their tone; my appetite returned, and in a fortnight I
The Professor |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gambara by Honore de Balzac: votaries of the blue divinity Hope always discount results. When a man
believes himself destined to do great things, it is hard not to fancy
them achieved; the bushel always has some cracks through which the
light shines.
"My wife's family lodged in the same house, and the hope of winning
Marianna, who often smiled at me from her window, had done much to
encourage my efforts. I now fell into the deepest melancholy as I
sounded the depths of a life of poverty, a perpetual struggle in which
love must die. Marianna acted as genius does; she jumped across every
obstacle, both feet at once. I will not speak of the little happiness
which shed its gilding on the beginning of my misfortunes. Dismayed at
Gambara |
