| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: hands and stretch them out to make him a captive. That would be
the time: with a shout and a leap he would be in the midst of
them, kriss in hand, killing, killing, killing, and would die
with the shouts of his enemies in his ears, their warm blood
spurting before his eyes.
Carried away by his excitement, he snatched the kriss hidden in
his sarong, and, drawing a long breath, rushed forward, struck at
the empty air, and fell on his face. He lay as if stunned in the
sudden reaction from his exaltation, thinking that, even if he
died thus gloriously, it would have to be before he saw Nina.
Better so. If he saw her again he felt that death would be too
Almayer's Folly |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: the bank of the stream, saw the individual trees, the leaves
and the veining of each leaf -- he saw the very insects upon
them: the locusts, the brilliant bodied flies, the gray
spiders stretching their webs from twig to twig. He noted
the prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon a million
blades of grass. The humming of the gnats that danced above
the eddies of the stream, the beating of the dragon flies'
wings, the strokes of the water spiders' legs, like oars
which had lifted their boat -- all these made audible
music. A fish slid along beneath his eyes and he heard the
rush of its body parting the water.
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: cousin's ear. "She is the most humble-minded woman in Paris, for she
had the public and has contented herself with a husband."
"What is your will, messeigneurs?" said the facetious editor, seeing
his two friends and imitating Frederic Lemaitre.
Theodore Gaillard, formerly a wit, had ended by becoming a stupid man
in consequence of remaining constantly in one centre,--a moral
phenomenon frequently to be observed in Paris. His principal method of
conversation consisted in sowing his speeches with sayings taken from
plays then in vogue and pronounced in imitation of well-known actors.
"We have come to blague," said Leon.
"'Again, young men'" (Odry in the Saltimbauques).
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