| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: of the premises. She turned slowly round, but, gracious Heaven!
my lord, what a countenance did she display to me! There was no
longer any question what she was, or any thought of her being a
living being. Upon a face which wore the fixed features of a
corpse were imprinted the traces of the vilest and most hideous
passions which had animated her while she lived. The body of
some atrocious criminal seemed to have been given up from the
grave, and the soul restored from the penal fire, in order to
form for a space a union with the ancient accomplice of its
guilt. I started up in bed, and sat upright, supporting myself
on my palms, as I gazed on this horrible spectre. The hag made,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen: church-bells rang, and asses went along with a dingle-dingle-dong! for they
too had bells on. The street boys were screaming and hooting, and shouting and
shooting, with devils and detonating balls--and there came corpse bearers and
hood wearers--for there were funerals with psalm and hymn--and then the din of
carriages driving and company arriving: yes, it was, in truth, lively enough
down in the street. Only in that single house, which stood opposite that in
which the learned foreigner lived, it was quite still; and yet some one lived
there, for there stood flowers in the balcony--they grew so well in the sun's
heat! and that they could not do unless they were watered--and some one must
water them--there must be somebody there. The door opposite was also opened
late in the evening, but it was dark within, at least in the front room;
Fairy Tales |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: threatening letters; the man who throws grenades and torpedoes is
less malicious; the Devil in red-hot hell rubs his hands with glee
as he reckons up the number that go forth spreading pain and
anxiety with each delivery of the post.
I have been walking to-day by a colonnade of beeches along the
brawling Allan. My character for sanity is quite gone, seeing that
I cheered my lonely way with the following, in a triumphant chaunt:
'Thank God for the grass, and the fir-trees, and the crows, and the
sheep, and the sunshine, and the shadows of the fir-trees.' I hold
that he is a poor mean devil who can walk alone, in such a place
and in such weather, and doesn't set up his lungs and cry back to
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