| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: and the princess were hiding behind an oak. Upon my word, as
the head came waving and undulating through the air, and
reaching almost within arm's length of Prince Jason, it was a
very hideous and uncomfortable sight. The gape of his enormous
jaws was nearly as wide as the gateway of the king's palace.
"Well, Jason," whispered Medea (for she was ill natured, as all
enchantresses are, and wanted to make the bold youth tremble),
"what do you think now of your prospect of winning the Golden
Fleece?"
Jason answered only by drawing his sword, and making a step
forward.
Tanglewood Tales |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: the key to the other door, - I think you said the convent dog did not
raise any disturbance? Pardon a personal question, but do you ever
walk in your sleep?"
The priest looked bewildered.
"I'll tell you what to do," Hotchkiss said cheerfully, leaning
forward, "look around a little yourself before you call in the
police. Somnambulism is a queer thing. It's a question whether
we are most ourselves sleeping or waking. Ever think of that?
Live a saintly life all day, prayers and matins and all that,
and the subconscious mind hikes you out of bed at night to steal
undermuslins! Subliminal theft, so to speak. Better examine
The Man in Lower Ten |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: great cattle land. And here in less than ten minutes I learned
news which made me feel a stranger indeed.
My baggage was lost; it had not come on my train; it was adrift
somewhere back in the two thousand miles that lay behind me. And
by way of comfort, the baggage-man remarked that passengers often
got astray from their trunks, but the trunks mostly found them
after a while. Having offered me this encouragement, he turned
whistling to his affairs and left me planted in the baggage-room
at Medicine Bow. I stood deserted among crates and boxes, blankly
holding my check, fungus and forlorn. I stared out through the
door at the sky and the plains; but I did not see the antelope
The Virginian |
