| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: started as at a trumpet call.
The stranger was standing in a prophetic attitude and gazing
southwards into the blue, pointing to his native home across the skyey
regions. The ascetic pallor of his face had given place to a glow of
triumph, his eyes flashed, he was as grand as a lion shaking his mane.
"But you, poor child," he went on, looking at Godefroid, whose cheeks
were beaded with glittering tears, "have you, like me, studied life
from blood-stained pages? What can you have to weep for, at your age?"
"Alas!" said Godefroid, "I regret a land more beautiful than any land
on earth--a land I never saw and yet remember. Oh, if I could but
cleave the air on beating wings, I would fly----"
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Enchanted Island of Yew by L. Frank Baum: the wall to the palace of the green High Ki; but what was their
amazement to find the twin palaces separated by a wall so high that no
ladders nor steps they possessed could reach to the top! It had been
built in a single night, and only Prince Marvel and his fairy friends
knew how the work had been done so quickly.
The yellow High Ki, coming downstairs to breakfast with her friends,
found herself securely shut in from her enemies, and the bald-headed
old Ki were so pleased to escape that they danced another jig from
pure joy.
Over the wall could be heard the shouts and threats of the army of
Twi, who were seeking a way to get at the fugitives; but for the
The Enchanted Island of Yew |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: I had said in my talk with Mrs. Grose on that horrid scene of Flora's
by the lake--and had perplexed her by so saying--that it would from
that moment distress me much more to lose my power than to keep it.
I had then expressed what was vividly in my mind: the truth that,
whether the children really saw or not--since, that is, it was
not yet definitely proved--I greatly preferred, as a safeguard,
the fullness of my own exposure. I was ready to know the very worst
that was to be known. What I had then had an ugly glimpse of was
that my eyes might be sealed just while theirs were most opened.
Well, my eyes WERE sealed, it appeared, at present--
a consummation for which it seemed blasphemous not to thank God.
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