| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: unchanging, as if traced by an unsteady hand on the clear blue of
the hot sky. In the space sheltered by the high palisades there
lingered the smell of decaying blossoms from the surrounding
forest, a taint of drying fish; with now and then a whiff of
acrid smoke from the cooking fires when it eddied down from under
the leafy boughs and clung lazily about the burnt-up grass.
As Babalatchi looked up at the flagstaff over-topping a group of
low trees in the middle of the courtyard, the tricolour flag of
the Netherlands stirred slightly for the first time since it had
been hoisted that morning on the arrival of the man-of-war boats.
With a faint rustle of trees the breeze came down in light puffs,
Almayer's Folly |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: sketches, Gouache landscapes and Audran engravings, relics of better
times and vanished luxury. On the second floor, a garret-window
lighted Felicite's room, which looked out upon the meadows.
She arose at daybreak, in order to attend mass, and she worked without
interruption until night; then, when dinner was over, the dishes
cleared away and the door securely locked, she would bury the log
under the ashes and fall asleep in front of the hearth with a rosary
in her hand. Nobody could bargain with greater obstinacy, and as for
cleanliness, the lustre on her brass sauce-pans was the envy and
despair of other servants. She was most economical, and when she ate
she would gather up crumbs with the tip of her finger, so that nothing
A Simple Soul |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Out of Time's Abyss by Edgar Rice Burroughs: they were approaching the northern extremity of the island.
According to the best of his calculations they had made
sufficient easting during the past two days to have brought them
to a point almost directly north of Fort Dinosaur and as nothing
could be gained by retracing their steps along the base of the
cliffs he decided to strike due south through the unexplored
country between them and the fort.
That night (September 9, 1916), they made camp a short distance
from the cliffs beside one of the numerous cool springs that are
to be found within Caspak, oftentimes close beside the still
more numerous warm and hot springs which feed the many pools.
Out of Time's Abyss |
