| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Scarecrow of Oz by L. Frank Baum: Scarecrow, "I fear I could not have conquered King
Krewl."
"No," agreed Trot, "you'd have been just a heap of
ashes by this time."
And I might have been lost yet," added Button-Bright.
"Much obliged, Mr. Ork."
"Oh, that's all right," replied the Ork. "Friends must
stand together, you know, or they wouldn't be friends.
But now I must leave you and be off to my own country,
where there's going to be a surprise party on my uncle,
and I've promised to attend it."
The Scarecrow of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: thirty, an old man, his stomach tanned by repeated doses of brandy,
will be held, according to certain leisured philosophers, to be
happier than the huckster is. The one perishes in a breath, and the
other by degrees. From his eight industries, from the labor of his
shoulders, his throat, his hands, from his wife and his business, the
one derives--as from so many farms--children, some thousands of
francs, and the most laborious happiness that has ever diverted the
heart of man. This fortune and these children, or the children who sum
up everything for him, become the prey of the world above, to which he
brings his ducats and his daughter or his son, reared at college, who,
with more education than his father, raises higher his ambitious gaze.
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lady Susan by Jane Austen: she was shut up with Mr. Johnson, while he waited in the drawing-room for
me. She arrived yesterday in pursuit of her husband, but perhaps you know
this already from himself. She came to this house to entreat my husband's
interference, and before I could be aware of it, everything that you could
wish to be concealed was known to him, and unluckily she had wormed out of
Mainwaring's servant that he had visited you every day since your being in
town, and had just watched him to your door herself! What could I do! Facts
are such horrid things! All is by this time known to De Courcy, who is now
alone with Mr. Johnson. Do not accuse me; indeed, it was impossible to
prevent it. Mr. Johnson has for some time suspected De Courcy of intending
to marry you, and would speak with him alone as soon as he knew him to be
Lady Susan |
