| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: Holberg; the Chiromancy of Robert Flud, of Jean D'Indagine,
and of De la Chambre; the Journey into the Blue Distance of
Tieck; and the City of the Sun by Campanella. One favourite
volume was a small octavo edition of the Directorium
Inquisitorum, by the Dominican Eymeric de Gironne; and there
were passages in Pomponius Mela, about the old African Satyrs
and OEgipans, over which Usher would sit dreaming for hours. His
chief delight, however, was found in the perusal of an
exceedingly rare and curious book in quarto Gothic--the manual of
a forgotten church--the Vigiliae Mortuorum Secundum Chorum Ecclesiae
Maguntinae.
The Fall of the House of Usher |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne: fanciful creation of Scandinavian superstitions. I felt intoxicated
with the sublime pleasure of lofty elevations without thinking of the
profound abysses into which I was shortly to be plunged. But I was
brought back to the realities of things by the arrival of Hans and
the Professor, who joined me on the summit.
My uncle pointed out to me in the far west a light steam or mist, a
semblance of land, which bounded the distant horizon of waters.
"Greenland!" said he.
"Greenland?" I cried.
"Yes; we are only thirty-five leagues from it; and during thaws the
white bears, borne by the ice fields from the north, are carried even
Journey to the Center of the Earth |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling: He is the Jester and the Jest,
And he the Text himself applies.
The Celt is in his heart and hand,
The Gaul is in his brain and nerve;
Where, cosmopolitanly planned,
He guards the Redskin's dry reserve.
His easy unswept hearth he lends
From Labrador to Guadeloupe;
Till, elbowed out by sloven friends,
Verses 1889-1896 |
