| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Dracula by Bram Stoker: Without such it is monstrous."
For answer he put his hand on my shoulder, and said,
with infinite tenderness, "Friend John, I pity your poor
bleeding heart, and I love you the more because it does so bleed.
If I could, I would take on myself the burden that you do bear.
But there are things that you know not, but that you shall know,
and bless me for knowing, though they are not pleasant things.
John, my child, you have been my friend now many years,
and yet did you ever know me to do any without good cause?
I may err, I am but man, but I believe in all I do.
Was it not for these causes that you send for me when the great
Dracula |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: self-indulgence was rent from head to foot. I saw my life as a
whole: I followed it up from the days of childhood, when I had
walked with my father's hand, and through the self-denying toils
of my professional life, to arrive again and again, with the same
sense of unreality, at the damned horrors of the evening. I
could have screamed aloud; I sought with tears and prayers to
smother down the crowd of hideous images and sounds with which my
memory swarmed against me; and still, between the petitions, the
ugly face of my iniquity stared into my soul. As the acuteness
of this remorse began to die away, it was succeeded by a sense of
joy. The problem of my conduct was solved. Hyde was thenceforth
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: each day the battle was led by him and fought by his lieutenants--a
battle of words, speeches, and proceedings. He dared not go to the
Vicar-General, and the Vicar-General never showed himself. Albert rose
and went to bed in a fever, his brain on fire.
At last the day dawned of the first struggle, practically the show of
hands; the votes are counted, the candidates estimate their chances,
and clever men can prophesy their failure or success. It is a decent
hustings, without the mob, but formidable; agitation, though it is not
allowed any physical display, as it is in England, is not the less
profound. The English fight these battles with their fists, the French
with hard words. Our neighbors have a scrimmage, the French try their
Albert Savarus |
