| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: contempt by the Most Eminent Grand Masters, Grand Chancellors, Great
Incohonees and Imperial Potentates of the ancient and honorable orders
of republican America.
MALE, n. A member of the unconsidered, or negligible sex. The male
of the human race is commonly known (to the female) as Mere Man. The
genus has two varieties: good providers and bad providers.
MALEFACTOR, n. The chief factor in the progress of the human race.
MALTHUSIAN, adj. Pertaining to Malthus and his doctrines. Malthus
believed in artificially limiting population, but found that it could
not be done by talking. One of the most practical exponents of the
Malthusian idea was Herod of Judea, though all the famous soldiers
The Devil's Dictionary |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: the top of which grew ferns, grasses, and stunted bushes. This mass was
about twenty-five feet high. The sides of the kloof here were also very
steep. Well, I came to the top of the nullah and looked all round. No
signs of the lion. Evidently I had either overlooked him further down
or he had escaped right away. It was very vexatious; but still three
lions were not a bad bag for one gun before dinner, and I was fain to be
content. Accordingly I departed back again, making my way round the
isolated pillar of boulders, beginning to feel, as I did so, that I was
pretty well done up with excitement and fatigue, and should be more so
before I had skinned those three lions. When I had got, as nearly as I
could judge, about eighteen yards past the pillar or mass of boulders, I
Long Odds |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from An International Episode by Henry James: who had made on former occasions the most agreeable impression
at this establishment, received an obsequious greeting.
Bessie Alden had felt much excited about coming to England;
she had expected the "associations" would be very charming,
that it would be an infinite pleasure to rest her eyes upon
the things she had read about in the poets and historians.
She was very fond of the poets and historians, of the picturesque,
of the past, of retrospect, of mementos and reverberations
of greatness; so that on coming into the English world,
where strangeness and familiarity would go hand in hand,
she was prepared for a multitude of fresh emotions.
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