| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: During the first session of his term Lincoln made three long
speeches, carefully prepared and written out beforehand. He was
neither elated nor dismayed at the result. "As to speech-making,"
he wrote William H. Herndon, who had now become his law partner,
"I find speaking here and elsewhere about the same thing. I was
about as badly scared, and no worse, as I am when I speak in
court."
The next year he made no set speeches, but in addition to the
usual work of a congressman occupied himself with a bill that had
for its object the purchase and freeing of all slaves in the
District of Columbia. Slavery was not only lawful at the national
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: since those moments on the Sorrento boat. It was she who had been,
he seemed to see as he looked at her--she who had been made so by
the graceless fact of his lapse of fidelity. To tell her what he
had told her--what had it been but to ask something of her?
something that she had given, in her charity, without his having,
by a remembrance, by a return of the spirit, failing another
encounter, so much as thanked her. What he had asked of her had
been simply at first not to laugh at him. She had beautifully not
done so for ten years, and she was not doing so now. So he had
endless gratitude to make up. Only for that he must see just how
he had figured to her. "What, exactly, was the account I gave--?"
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Marie by H. Rider Haggard: There were but fifty miles to go, a distance that on a fair road any
good horse would cover in eight hours, or less. But we had no horses,
and there was no road--nothing but swamps and bush and rocky hills.
With our untrained cattle it took us three days to travel the first
twelve miles, though after that things went somewhat better.
It may be asked, why did I not send on? But whom could I send when no
one knew the way, except the woman, Jeel, whom I feared to part with
lest I should see her no more? Moreover, what was the use of sending,
since the messengers could take no help? If everyone at the camp was
dead, as rumour told us--well, they were dead. And if they lived, the
hope was that they might live a little longer. Meanwhile, I dared not
Marie |
