| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: rope had broken and he had fallen into the stream. There was
no additional strangulation; the noose about his neck
was already suffocating him and kept the water from his
lungs. To die of hanging at the bottom of a river! -- the
idea seemed to him ludicrous. He opened his eyes in the
darkness and saw above him a gleam of light, but how distant,
how inaccessible! He was still sinking, for the light became
fainter and fainter until it was a mere glimmer. Then it
began to grow and brighten, and he knew that he was rising
toward the surface -- knew it with reluctance, for he was now
very comfortable. "To be hanged and drowned," he thought,
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin: likewise raise their wings and tail, and erect their feathers.
They open their beaks, and make by paddling little rapid starts forwards,
against any one who approaches the water's edge too closely.
Tropic birds[13] when disturbed on their nests are said not to
fly away, but "merely to stick out their feathers and scream."
The Barn-owl, when approached "instantly swells out its plumage,
extends its wings and tail, hisses and clacks its mandibles
with force and rapidity."[14] So do other kinds of owls.
Hawks, as I am
[11] The Hon. J. Caton, Ottawa Acad. of Nat. Sciences, May, 1868, pp.
36, 40. For the _Capra, AEgagrus_, `Land and Water,' 1867, p. 37.
Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: sink, or put it into progressive motion, as they pleased. But
not being at that time in a disposition to philosophise upon this
phenomenon, I rather chose to observe what course the island
would take, because it seemed for awhile to stand still. Yet
soon after, it advanced nearer, and I could see the sides of it
encompassed with several gradations of galleries, and stairs, at
certain intervals, to descend from one to the other. In the
lowest gallery, I beheld some people fishing with long angling
rods, and others looking on. I waved my cap (for my hat was long
since worn out) and my handkerchief toward the island; and upon
its nearer approach, I called and shouted with the utmost
Gulliver's Travels |
