| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: set for twenty months, an idle gazer on the light of heaven; in
this time the birds have left the nest of their mother, and
committed themselves to the woods and to the skies; the kid has
forsaken the teat, and learned by degrees to climb the rocks in
quest of independent sustenance. I only have made no advances, but
am still helpless and ignorant. The moon, by more than twenty
changes, admonished me of the flux of life; the stream that rolled
before my feet upbraided my inactivity. I sat feasting on
intellectual luxury, regardless alike of the examples of the earth
and the instructions of the planets. Twenty months are passed:
who shall restore them?"
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: remembered that he had been going to explain to the jury that a
verdict of "guilty" meant guilty of intentional murder unless the
words "without intent to take life" were added, but had, in his
hurry to get the business over, omitted to do so.
"Yes, but could not the mistake be rectified?"
"A reason for an appeal can always be found. You will have to
speak to an advocate," said the president, putting on his hat a
little to one side and continuing to move towards the door.
"But this is terrible."
"Well, you see, there were two possibilities before Maslova,"
said the president, evidently wishing to be as polite and
Resurrection |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Schoolmistress and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov: And the tune for some reason haunted him and his friends all the
way, and all three of them hummed it mechanically, not in time
with one another.
Vassilyev's imagination was picturing how, in another ten
minutes, he and his friends would knock at a door; how by little
dark passages and dark rooms they would steal in to the women;
how, taking advantage of the darkness, he would strike a match,
would light up and see the face of a martyr and a guilty smile.
The unknown, fair or dark, would certainly have her hair down and
be wearing a white dressing-jacket; she would be panic-stricken
by the light, would be fearfully confused, and would say: "For
The Schoolmistress and Other Stories |
