| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: them. And it may chance that some, looking back, see the past cut out
after this fashion:
I.
The year of infancy, where from the shadowy background of forgetfulness
start out pictures of startling clearness, disconnected, but brightly
coloured, and indelibly printed in the mind. Much that follows fades, but
the colours of those baby-pictures are permanent.
There rises, perhaps, a warm summer's evening; we are seated on the
doorstep; we have yet the taste of the bread and milk in our mouth, and the
red sunset is reflected in our basin.
Then there is a dark night, where, waking with a fear that there is some
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: Many such escapes were made out of infected houses, as
particularly when the watchman was sent of some errand; for it was
his business to go of any errand that the family sent him of; that is to
say, for necessaries, such as food and physic; to fetch physicians, if
they would come, or surgeons, or nurses, or to order the dead-cart, and
the like; but with this condition, too, that when he went he was to lock
up the outer door of the house and take the key away with him, To
evade this, and cheat the watchmen, people got two or three keys
made to their locks, or they found ways to unscrew the locks such as
were screwed on, and so take off the lock, being in the inside of the
house, and while they sent away the watchman to the market, to the
A Journal of the Plague Year |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: The fruit was spread for the commons, for all should eat to-day.
And now was the kava brewed, and now the cocoa ran,
Now was the hour of the dance for child and woman and man;
And mirth was in every heart, and a garland on every head,
And all was well with the living and well with the eight who were dead.
Only the chiefs and the priest talked and consulted awhile:
"To-morrow," they said, and "To-morrow," and nodded and seemed to smile:
"Rua the child of dirt, the creature of common clay,
Rua must die to-morrow, since Rua is gone to-day."
Out of the groves of the valley, where clear the blackbirds sang.
Sheer from the trees of the valley the face of the mountain sprang;
Ballads |
