| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: were rough peasants and peasant-women who had come with their
selfish requirements, seeking cures or to have doubts about quite
practical affairs solved for them: about marrying off a daughter,
or hiring a shop, or buying a bit of land, or how to atone for
having overlaid a child or having an illegitimate one.
All this was an old story and not in the least interesting to
him. He knew he would hear nothing new from these folk, that
they would arouse no religious emotion in him; but he liked to
see the crowd to which his blessing and advice was necessary and
precious, so while that crowd oppressed him it also pleased him.
Father Seraphim began to drive them away, saying that Father
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas: "people always make blunders in politics. His Highness has
granted you your life; I'm sure I should never have done
so."
"Don't say so," replied Cornelius; "why not?"
"Because you are the very man to conspire again. You learned
people have dealings with the devil."
"Nonsense, Master Gryphus. Are you dissatisfied with the
manner in which I have set your arm, or with the price that
I asked you?" said Cornelius, laughing.
"On the contrary," growled the jailer, "you have set it only
too well. There is some witchcraft in this. After six weeks,
The Black Tulip |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: indiscreet and officious, which made him a troublesome colleague;
domineering in all his ways, which made him incurably unpopular
with the Kanakas, but yet destitute of real authority, so that his
boys laughed at him and he must carry out his wishes by the means
of bribes. He learned to have a mania for doctoring; and set up
the Kanakas against the remedies of his regular rivals: perhaps (if
anything matter at all in the treatment of such a disease) the
worst thing that he did, and certainly the easiest. The best and
worst of the man appear very plainly in his dealings with Mr.
Chapman's money; he had originally laid it out" [intended to lay it
out] "entirely for the benefit of Catholics, and even so not
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