The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll: off the table, and set it up before the kitten as a model for it
to imitate: however, the thing didn't succeed, principally,
Alice said, because the kitten wouldn't fold its arms properly.
So, to punish it, she held it up to the Looking-glass, that it
might see how sulky it was--`and if you're not good directly,'
she added, `I'll put you through into Looking-glass House. How
would you like THAT?'
`Now, if you'll only attend, Kitty, and not talk so much, I'll
tell you all my ideas about Looking-glass House. First, there's
the room you can see through the glass--that's just the same as
our drawing room, only the things go the other way. I can see
Through the Looking-Glass |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: room for a bare ten minutes; he talked without any pretension to the
women in it, and at these times they thought him very clever. In
short, judge of his absorption; Joby, his horses and carriages, became
secondary interests in his life. He was never happy except in the
depths of a snug settee opposite the Baroness, by the dark-green
porphyry chimney-piece, watching Isaure, taking tea, and chatting with
the little circle of friends that dropped in every evening between
eleven and twelve in the Rue Joubert. You could play bouillotte there
safely. (I always won.) Isaure sat with one little foot thrust out in
its black satin shoe; Godefroid would gaze and gaze, and stay till
every one else was gone, and say, 'Give me your shoe!' and Isaure
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: fifteen feet. Strictly speaking, this horn is but a lengthened tusk,
growing out from the jaw in a line a little depressed from the
horizontal. But it is only found on the sinister side, which has an
ill effect, giving its owner something analogous to the aspect of a
clumsy left-handed man. What precise purpose this ivory horn or
lance answers, it would be hard to say. It does not seem to be used
like the blade of the sword-fish and bill-fish; though some sailors
tell me that the Narwhale employs it for a rake in turning over the
bottom of the sea for food. Charley Coffin said it was used for an
ice-piercer; for the Narwhale, rising to the surface of the Polar
Sea, and finding it sheeted with ice, thrusts his horn up, and so
Moby Dick |