| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: eyes. There is a gentleness in his expression that speaks rather
of dreaming than of the power to turn dreams into acts. It is
strange to find a personality so etherial among the descendants
of the Mongol hordes; yet the Emperor Kuaug Hsu might sit as a
model for some Oriental saint on the threshold of the highest
beatitude. --Charles Johnston in "The Crisis in China."
VIII
KUANG HSU--HIS SELF-DEVELOPMENT
On the night that the son of the Empress Dowager "ascended upon
the dragon to be a guest on high," two sedan chairs were borne
out of the west gate of the Forbidden City, through the Imperial
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Road to Oz by L. Frank Baum: frightened fawn, poised upon one foot as if to fly the next instant,
Dorothy was astonished to see tears flowing from her violet eyes and
trickling down her lovely rose-hued cheeks. That the dainty maiden
should dance and weep at the same time was indeed surprising; so
Dorothy asked in a soft, sympathetic voice:
"Are you unhappy, little girl?"
"Very!" was the reply; "I am lost."
"Why, so are we," said Dorothy, smiling; "but we don't cry about it."
"Don't you? Why not?"
"'Cause I've been lost before, and always got found again,"
answered Dorothy simply.
The Road to Oz |
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: long-continued illness--indeed to the evidently approaching dis-
solution--of a tenderly beloved sister--his sole companion for
long years--his last and only relative on earth. "Her decease,"
he said, with a bitterness which I can never forget, "would leave
him (him the hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient race
of the Ushers." While he spoke, the lady Madeline (for so was
she called) passed slowly through a remote portion of the
apartment, and, without having noticed my presence, disappeared.
I regarded her with an utter astonishment not unmingled with
dread--and yet I found it impossible to account for such
feelings. A sensation of stupor oppressed me, as my eyes
The Fall of the House of Usher |
