| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: over sixty feet high and two miles long. All washed away but that.'
[This with a sigh.)
I had a mighty impulse to destroy him, but it seemed to me that killing,
in any ordinary way, would be too good for him.
Once, when an odd-looking craft, with a vast coal-scuttle slanting
aloft on the end of a beam, was steaming by in the distance,
he indifferently drew attention to it, as one might to an object
grown wearisome through familiarity, and observed that it was
an 'alligator boat.'
'An alligator boat? What's it for?'
'To dredge out alligators with.'
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Schoolmistress and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov: The booming of the bells mingled with the rumble of carriages,
and above the chaos of sounds rose the brisk tenor tones
of the nearest church and a loud shrill laugh.
"What a lot of people!" sighed Nevyrazimov, looking down into the
street, where shadows of men flitted one after another by the
illumination lamps. "They're all hurrying to the midnight
service. . . . Our fellows have had a drink by now, you may be
sure, and are strolling about the town. What a lot of laughter,
what a lot of talk! I'm the only unlucky one, to have to sit here
on such a day: And I have to do it every year!"
"Well, nobody forces you to take the job. It's not your turn to
The Schoolmistress and Other Stories |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: of his skeleton.'
We were approaching Memphis, in front of which city, and witnessed by
its people, was fought the most famous of the river battles of the Civil War.
Two men whom I had served under, in my river days, took part in that fight:
Mr. Bixby, head pilot of the Union fleet, and Montgomery, Commodore of the
Confederate fleet. Both saw a great deal of active service during the war,
and achieved high reputations for pluck and capacity.
As we neared Memphis, we began to cast about for an excuse to stay
with the 'Gold Dust' to the end of her course--Vicksburg. We were
so pleasantly situated, that we did not wish to make a change.
I had an errand of considerable importance to do at Napoleon, Arkansas,
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