| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: had become of the cloud-sea of crimson and scarlet. The trial-
day of this man's life was over, and he had lost the victory.
What followed was mere drifting circumstance,--a quicker walking
over the path,--that was all. Do you want to hear the end of
it? You wish me to make a tragic story out of it? Why, in the
police-reports of the morning paper you can find a dozen such
tragedies: hints of shipwrecks unlike any that ever befell on
the high seas; hints that here a power was lost to heaven,--that
there a soul went down where no tide can ebb or flow.
Commonplace enough the hints are,--jocose sometimes, done up in
rhyme.
Life in the Iron-Mills |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: accidents may confront them with,[13] I admit that the tactics here
are not so easy to understand, except for people trained under the
laws of Lycurgus. Even movements which an instructor in heavy-armed
warfare[14] might look upon as difficult are performed by the
Lacedaemonians with the utmost ease.[15] Thus, the troops, we will
suppose, are marching in column; one section of a company is of course
stepping up behind another from the rear.[16] Now, if at such a moment
a hostile force appears in front in battle order, the word is passed
down to the commander of each section, "Deploy (into line) to the
left." And so throughout the whole length of the column, until the
line is formed facing the enemy. Or supposing while in this position
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Poor and Proud by Oliver Optic: ale-house, where he had been robbed of the remittance. He had
been imprudent, but instead of running away, he went directly to
my father, and informed him of his misfortune. The young man felt
that he was ruined, but he said he was determined not to leave
Liverpool till he had found the money. He was sure he knew the
man who had robbed him, and my father procured the services of
several policemen to assist him in his search. All that day and
all that night, attended by policemen, he visited the resorts of
vice and crime, and his perseverance was rewarded with success.
He found the man, and the money was recovered. My father was so
well pleased with the energy of the young man, that he gave him a
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