| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: ...
Someone came stamping up the stairs--paused at the door of her sitting-
room, and knocked.
"Is that you, Victor?" she called.
"No, it is I... can I come in?"
"Of course. Why, what a Santa Claus! Hang your coat on the landing and
shake yourself over the banisters. Had a good time?"
The room was full of light and warmth. Elsa, in a white velvet tea-gown,
lay curled up on the sofa--a book of fashions on her lap, a box of creams
beside her.
The curtains were not yet drawn before the windows and a blue light shone
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: him to his evenings. These life-long labors, then, are for the good of
the children, whom these lower middle classes are inevitably driven to
exalt. Thus each sphere directs all its efforts towards the sphere
above it. The son of the rich grocer becomes a notary, the son of the
timber merchant becomes a magistrate. No link is wanting in the chain,
and everything stimulates the upward march of money.
Thus we are brought to the third circle of this hell, which, perhaps,
will some day find its Dante. In this third social circle, a sort of
Parisian belly, in which the interests of the town are digested, and
where they are condensed into the form known as /business/, there
moves and agitates, as by some acrid and bitter intestinal process,
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: Sicilian Vicenzu ... "Che bella sposina!" Her betrothal ring
will not come off, Giuseppe; but the delicate bone snaps easily:
your oyster-knife can sever the tendon ... "Guardate! chi bedda
picciota!" Over her heart you will find it, Valentino--the
locket held by that fine Swiss chain of woven hair--"Caya manan!"
And it is not your quadroon bondsmaid, sweet lady, who now
disrobes you so roughly; those Malay hands are less deft than
hers,--but she slumbers very far away from you, and may not be
aroused from her sleep. "Na quita mo! dalaga!--na quita
maganda!" ... Juan, the fastenings of those diamond ear-drops are
much too complicated for your peon fingers: tear them
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