| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe: the whole town is now called Corfe Castle; it is a corporation,
sending members to Parliament.
This part of the country is eminent for vast quarries of stone,
which is cut out flat, and used in London in great quantities for
paving courtyards, alleys, avenues to houses, kitchens, footways on
the sides of the High Streets, and the like; and is very profitable
to the place, as also in the number of shipping employed in
bringing it to London. There are also several rocks of very good
marble, only that the veins in the stone are not black and white,
as the Italian, but grey, red, and other colours.
From hence to Weymouth, which is 22 miles, we rode in view of the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: God. It is so wonderful that it seems as if a child could reach it
in a summer's day. And so a child could. But with me and such as
me it is different. One can realise a thing in a single moment,
but one loses it in the long hours that follow with leaden feet.
It is so difficult to keep 'heights that the soul is competent to
gain.' We think in eternity, but we move slowly through time; and
how slowly time goes with us who lie in prison I need not tell
again, nor of the weariness and despair that creep back into one's
cell, and into the cell of one's heart, with such strange
insistence that one has, as it were, to garnish and sweep one's
house for their coming, as for an unwelcome guest, or a bitter
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: But memory failed: the chords and discords climbed
And found no resolution--only hung there,
And left me morbid . . . Where, then, had I heard it? . . .
What secret dusty chamber was it hinting?
'Dust', it said, 'dust . . . and dust . . . and sunlight . .
A cold clear April evening . . . snow, bedraggled,
Rain-worn snow, dappling the hideous grass . . .
And someone walking alone; and someone saying
That all must end, for the time had come to go . . . '
These were the phrases . . . but behind, beneath them
A greater shadow moved: and in this shadow
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