| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: of harvests, in the grove above. It was strangely moving to see
this and to make part of it. The sky, the sea, have watched
poor humanity at its rites so long; we were no more a New England
family celebrating its own existence and simple progress; we
carried the tokens and inheritance of all such households from
which this had descended, and were only the latest of our line. We
possessed the instincts of a far, forgotten childhood; I found
myself thinking that we ought to be carrying green branches and
singing as we went. So we came to the thick shaded grove still
silent, and were set in our places by the straight trees that
swayed together and let sunshine through here and there like a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from When the World Shook by H. Rider Haggard: appeared in a silent and mysterious way, as though he had
materialised in the room, for I never saw him pass the doorway.
In the moonlight, or the starlight, which flowed through the
entrance and the side of the hut that was only enclosed with
latticework, I perceived him seat himself upon a certain stool,
looking like a most majestic ghost with his flowing robes, long
white beard, hooked nose and hawk eyes. In the day-time he much
resembled the late General Booth whom I had often seen, except
for certain added qualities of height and classic beauty of
countenance. At night, however, he resembled no one but himself,
indeed there was something mighty and godlike in his appearance,
When the World Shook |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: The China rose is all abloom and buzzing with the yellow bee.
The words (she was looking at the window) sounded as if they were
floating like flowers on water out there, cut off from them all, as if
no one had said them, but they had come into existence of themselves.
And all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be
Are full of trees and changing leaves.
She did not know what they meant, but, like music, the words seemed to
be spoken by her own voice, outside her self, saying quite easily and
naturally what had been in her mind the whole evening while she said
different things. She knew, without looking round, that every one at
the table was listening to the voice saying:
To the Lighthouse |
