| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne: complete darkness reigned beneath those giants; they formed
settlements of domes placed in close array like the round, thatched
roofs of a central African city.
Yet I wanted to penetrate farther underneath, though a chill fell
upon me as soon as I came under those cellular vaults. For half an
hour we wandered from side to side in the damp shades, and it was a
comfortable and pleasant change to arrive once more upon the sea
shore.
But the subterranean vegetation was not confined to these fungi.
Farther on rose groups of tall trees of colourless foliage and easy
to recognise. They were lowly shrubs of earth, here attaining
Journey to the Center of the Earth |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: this time in daylight.
Eliza was in a frenzy of fear. She clutched at my sleeve when I
went close to her, and refused to let go until she had told her
story. Coming just after the fire, the household was
demoralized, and it was no surprise to me to find Alex and the
under-gardener struggling down-stairs with a heavy trunk between
them.
"I didn't want to do it, Miss Innes," Alex said. "But she was so
excited, I was afraid she would do as she said--drag
it down herself, and scratch the staircase."
I was trying to get my bonnet off and to keep the maids quiet at
The Circular Staircase |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: Minotaur or the king! Take them away, guards; and let this
free-spoken youth be the Minotaur's first morsel."
Near the king's throne (though I had no time to tell you so
before) stood his daughter Ariadne. She was a beautiful and
tender-hearted maiden, and looked at these poor doomed captives
with very different feelings from those of the iron-breasted
King Minos. She really wept indeed, at the idea of how much
human happiness would be needlessly thrown away, by giving so
many young people, in the first bloom and rose blossom of their
lives, to be eaten up by a creature who, no doubt, would have
preferred a fat ox, or even a large pig, to the plumpest of
Tanglewood Tales |
