| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum: "But after seeing the Cuttenclips and the Fuddles," remarked her
uncle, "we ought not to wonder at anything in this strange country."
"Seems like the only common and ordinary folks here are ourselves,"
rejoined Aunt Em, diffidently.
"Now that we're together again, and one reunited party," observed the
Shaggy Man, "what are we to do next?"
"Have some supper and a night's rest," answered the Wizard
promptly, "and then proceed upon our journey."
"Where to?" asked the Captain General.
"We haven't visited the Rigmaroles or the Flutterbudgets yet," said
Dorothy. "I'd like to see them--wouldn't you?"
The Emerald City of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Poor and Proud by Oliver Optic: "I see now."
Johnny was not disposed to resent this last insinuation about the
solidity of his cranium. He was evidently too glad to get out of
the scrape without a broken head or a bloody nose. Johnny was a
bully, and he had a bully's reputation to maintain; but he never
fought when the odds were against him; and he had a congressman's
skill in backing out before the water got too hot. On the whole,
he rather enjoyed the pun; and he had the condescension to laugh
heartily, though somewhat unnaturally, at the jest.
"Will you give me a flounder, Tommy?" said the little ragged
girl, as she glanced into his well-filled basket.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: and is not free to get out of his place; for he doesn't know how to do
anything but copy papers."
Bixiou. "Ah! now we are coming to a conclusion. So the bureau is the
clerk's shell, husk, pod. No clerk without a bureau, no bureau without
a clerk. But what do you make, then, of a customs officer?" [Poiret
shuffles his feet and tries to edge away; Bixiou twists off one button
and catches him by another.] "He is, from the bureaucratic point of
view, a neutral being. The excise-man is only half a clerk; he is on
the confines between civil and military service; neither altogether
soldier nor altogether clerk-- Here, here, where are you going?"
[Twists the button.] "Where does the government clerk proper end?
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