| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White: trees, with green grass around us; a refreshing contrast after
the desert brown. In the distance ahead stood a big hill, and at
its base we could make out amid the tree-green, the straight slim
smoke of many fires and the threads of many roads.
We began our next morning's march early, and we dropped over the
hill into a wide, cultivated valley. Fields of grain, mostly
rape, were planted irregularly among big scattered trees. The
morning air, warming under the sun, was as yet still, and carried
sound well. The cooing, chattering and calling of thousands of
birds mingled with shouts and the clapping together of pieces of
wood. As we came closer we saw that every so often scaffolds had
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen: nearer they came the larger they grew. Gerda well remembered how large and
strange the snow-flakes appeared when she once saw them through a
magnifying-glass; but now they were large and terrific in another
manner--they were all alive. They were the outposts of the Snow Queen. They
had the most wondrous shapes; some looked like large ugly porcupines; others
like snakes knotted together, with their heads sticking out; and others,
again, like small fat bears, with the hair standing on end: all were of
dazzling whiteness--all were living snow-flakes.
Little Gerda repeat~d the Lord's Prayer. The cold was so intense that she
could see her own breath, which came like smoke out of her mouth. It grew
thicker and thicker, and took the form of little angels, that grew more and
Fairy Tales |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: The sky sank down before dawn, muddy, flat, immovable. The air
is thick, clammy with the breath of crowded human beings. It
stifles me. I open the window, and, looking out, can scarcely
see through the rain the grocer's shop opposite, where a crowd
of drunken Irishmen are puffing Lynchburg tobacco in their
pipes. I can detect the scent through all the foul smells
ranging loose in the air.
The idiosyncrasy of this town is smoke. It rolls sullenly in
slow folds from the great chimneys of the iron-foundries, and
settles down in black, slimy pools on the muddy streets. Smoke
on the wharves, smoke on the dingy boats, on the yellow river,--
Life in the Iron-Mills |
