| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: his services, and he has since then made himself very useful in the
Chamber. The position he has now attained is one in which he can rest
upon his oars till the end of his days. He has a good deal of
adroitness in business matters; and though he can hardly be called an
orator, speaks pleasantly and fluently, which is all that is necessary
in politics. His shrewdness and the extent of his information in all
matters of government and administration are fully appreciated, and
all parties consider him indispensable. I may tell you that he was
recently offered an embassy, but I would not let him accept it. I am
tied to Paris by the education of Armand and Athenais--who are now
respectively thirteen and nearly eleven--and I don't intend leaving
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: grass helping a toad in difficulties. If it's true, as
some German fellow has said, that without phos-
phorus there is no thought, it is still more true that
there is no kindness of heart without a certain
amount of imagination. She had some. She had
even more than is necessary to understand suffer-
ing and to be moved by pity. She fell in love un-
der circumstances that leave no room for doubt in
the matter; for you need imagination to form a
notion of beauty at all, and still more to discover
your ideal in an unfamiliar shape.
Amy Foster |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft: They had fears of fabled emissaries from around the mountains
where Leng is said to lie, and of evil presences and nameless
sentinels far north among the scattered rocks. And they whispered
also that the rumoured Shantak-birds are no wholesome things;
it being. indeed for the best that no man has ever truly seen
one (for that fabled father of Shantaks in the king's dome is
fed in the dark).
The next day, saying that he wished to look
over all the various mines for himself and to visit the scattered
farms and quaint onyx villages of Inquanok, Carter hired a yak
and stuffed great leathern saddle-bags for a journey. Beyond the
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath |
