| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: Several voices exclaimed: "Prove his power to us!"
Jacob leaned over the priests' table, and said slowly, in a half-
suppressed tone, as if awe-struck by his own words:
"Know ye not, then, that He is the Messiah?"
The priests stared at one another, and Vitellius demanded the meaning
of the word. His interpreter paused a moment before translating it.
Then he said that Messiah was the name to be given to one who was to
come, bringing the enjoyment of all blessings, and giving them
domination over all the peoples of the earth. Certain persons believed
that there were to be two Messiahs; one would be vanquished by Gog and
Magog, the demons of the North; but the other would exterminate the
Herodias |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde: Fisherman, 'Ask me anything but that!'
He laughed, and held her all the more tightly.
And when she saw that she could not free herself, she whispered to
him, 'Surely I am as fair as the daughters of the sea, and as
comely as those that dwell in the blue waters,' and she fawned on
him and put her face close to his.
But he thrust her back frowning, and said to her, 'If thou keepest
not the promise that thou madest to me I will slay thee for a false
witch.'
She grew grey as a blossom of the Judas tree, and shuddered. 'Be
it so,' she muttered. 'It is thy soul and not mine. Do with it as
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Men of Iron by Howard Pyle: instead of pushing the combat to a mercifully speedy end-- and
his foolish generosity cost him dear.
In the momentary pause that had thus stirred the Earl of
Mackworth to a sudden outbreak, the Earl of Alban sat upon his
panting, sweating war- horse, facing his powerful young enemy at
about twelve paces distant. He sat as still as a rock, holding
his gisarm poised in front of him. He had, as the Earl of
Mackworth had said, been wounded twice, and each time with the
point of the sword, so much more dangerous than a direct cut with
the weapon. One wound was beneath his armor, and no one but he
knew how serious it might be; the other was under the overlapping
Men of Iron |
