| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: and for so long a period not merely estranged, but outlawed from
society, had habituated herself to such latitude of speculation
as was altogether foreign to the clergyman. She had wandered,
without rule or guidance, in a moral wilderness, as vast, as
intricate, and shadowy as the untamed forest, amid the gloom of
which they were now holding a colloquy that was to decide their
fate. Her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in
desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild Indian in
his woods. For years past she had looked from this estranged
point of view at human institutions, and whatever priests or
legislators had established; criticising all with hardly more
The Scarlet Letter |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain: as a thousand people there from twenty mile around.
The woods was full of teams and wagons, hitched
everywheres, feeding out of the wagon-troughs and
stomping to keep off the flies. There was sheds made
out of poles and roofed over with branches, where they
had lemonade and gingerbread to sell, and piles of
watermelons and green corn and such-like truck.
The preaching was going on under the same kinds
of sheds, only they was bigger and held crowds of
people. The benches was made out of outside slabs
of logs, with holes bored in the round side to drive
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: I was agniz'd of one, who by the skirt
Caught me, and cried, "What wonder have we here!"
And I, when he to me outstretch'd his arm,
Intently fix'd my ken on his parch'd looks,
That although smirch'd with fire, they hinder'd not
But I remember'd him; and towards his face
My hand inclining, answer'd: "Sir! Brunetto!
And art thou here?" He thus to me: "My son!
Oh let it not displease thee, if Brunetto
Latini but a little space with thee
Turn back, and leave his fellows to proceed."
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
