| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: the Moors, at Sallee; they then bade me come on board, and very
kindly took me in, and all my goods.
It was an inexpressible joy to me, which any one will believe, that
I was thus delivered, as I esteemed it, from such a miserable and
almost hopeless condition as I was in; and I immediately offered
all I had to the captain of the ship, as a return for my
deliverance; but he generously told me he would take nothing from
me, but that all I had should be delivered safe to me when I came
to the Brazils. "For," says he, "I have saved your life on no
other terms than I would be glad to be saved myself: and it may,
one time or other, be my lot to be taken up in the same condition.
Robinson Crusoe |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather: to tune up for the dance. Clara was to accompany them on her old
upright piano, which had been brought down from her father's. By
this time Nils had renewed old acquaintances. Since his interview
with Clara in the cellar, he had been busy telling all the old
women how young they looked, and all the young ones how pretty they
were, and assuring the men that they had here the best farmland in
the world. He had made himself so agreeable that old Mrs.
Ericson's friends began to come up to her and tell how lucky she
was to get her smart son back again, and please to get him to play
his flute. Joe Vavrika, who could still play very well when he
forgot that he had rheumatism, caught up a fiddle from Johnny
The Troll Garden and Selected Stories |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: Heed not the definitions your "Unabridged" presents,
For dictionary makers are generally gents.
G.J.
GEOGRAPHER, n. A chap who can tell you offhand the difference between
the outside of the world and the inside.
Habeam, geographer of wide reknown,
Native of Abu-Keber's ancient town,
In passing thence along the river Zam
To the adjacent village of Xelam,
Bewildered by the multitude of roads,
Got lost, lived long on migratory toads,
The Devil's Dictionary |
