| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Koran: turn repentant unto Thee, and I am the first of those who are
resigned.'
He said, 'O Moses! verily, I have chosen thee over the people with
my messages and my words, take then what I have brought thee, and be
of those who thank.' And we wrote for him upon tablets an admonition
concerning everything, and a detailing of everything: 'Take them
then with firmness, and bid thy people take them for what is best
thereof. I will show you the abode of those who work abominations; I
will turn from my signs those who are big with pride in the earth
without right; and if they see every sign they shall not believe
therein, and if they see the path of rectitude they shall not take
The Koran |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: large, where minds could expand, where the splendor of the Imperial
Court was so vividly reflected, and to be dropped suddenly into a
sphere of squalidly narrow ideas--was it not like a leap from Italy
into Greenland?--"Living here is not life!" said he to himself, as he
looked round the Methodistical room. The old Count, seeing his son's
dismay, went up to him, and taking his hand, led him to a window,
where there was still a gleam of daylight, and while the maid was
lighting the yellow tapers in the candle branches he tried to clear
away the clouds that the dreary place had brought to his brow.
"Listen, my boy," said he. "Old Bontems' widow is a frenzied bigot.
'When the devil is old--' you know! I see that the place goes against
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll: embarrassing silence, "that is, when we first talked about her--for I
think it was you that introduced the subject--my own position in life
forbade me to do more than worship her from a distance:
and I was turning over plans for leaving this place finally,
and settling somewhere out of all chance of meeting her again.
That seemed to be my only chance of usefulness in life.
Would that have been wise?" I said. "To leave yourself no hope at all?"
"There was no hope to leave," Arthur firmly replied, though his eyes
glittered with tears as he gazed upwards into the midnight sky, from
which one solitary star, the glorious 'Vega,' blazed out in fitful
splendour through the driving clouds. "She was like that star to me--
Sylvie and Bruno |
