| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: So sang in the gloom of youth the bird of hope;
So we, exulting, hearkened and desired.
For lo! as in the palace porch of life
We huddled with chimeras, from within -
How sweet to hear! - the music swelled and fell,
And through the breach of the revolving doors
What dreams of splendour blinded us and fled!
I have since then contended and rejoiced;
Amid the glories of the house of life
Profoundly entered, and the shrine beheld:
Yet when the lamp from my expiring eyes
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Chouans by Honore de Balzac: who was pretending to be asleep; but Pille-Miche and Marche-a-Terre
both knew by experience that no one ever slept by the corner of their
fire, and though the last words said to Galope-Chopine were almost
whispered, they must have been heard by the victim, and the four
Chouans looked at him fixedly, thinking perhaps that fear had deprived
him of his senses.
Suddenly, at a slight sign from Marche-a-Terre, Pille-Miche pulled off
d'Orgemont's shoes and stockings, Mene-a-Bien and Galope-Chopine
seized him round the body and carried him to the fire. Then Marche-a-
Terre took one of the thongs that tied the fagots and fastened the
miser's feet to the crane. These actions and the horrible celerity
The Chouans |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: afford him. He entered, at some length, into what he conceived
to be the nature of his malady. It was, he said, a
constitutional and a family evil, and one for which he despaired
to find a remedy--a mere nervous affection, he immediately added,
which would undoubtedly soon pass off. It displayed itself in a
host of unnatural sensations. Some of these, as he detailed
them, interested and bewildered me; although, perhaps, the terms,
and the general manner of the narration had their weight. He
suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most
insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of
certain texture; the odours of all flowers were oppressive; his
The Fall of the House of Usher |
