| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Moon-Face and Other Stories by Jack London: perpetration of the deed, its possibility is remotest from our thoughts; but
when we did know that he was dead, it seemed, somehow, that we had understood
and looked forward to it all the time. This, by retrospective analysis, we
could easily explain by the fact of his great trouble. I use "great trouble"
advisedly. Young, handsome, with an assured position as the right-hand man of
Eben Hale, the great street-railway magnate, there could be no reason for him
to complain of fortune's favors. Yet we had watched his smooth brow furrow and
corrugate as under some carking care or devouring sorrow. We had watched his
thick, black hair thin and silver as green grain under brazen skies and
parching drought. Who can forget, in the midst of the hilarious scenes he
toward the last sought with greater and greater avidity--who can forget, I
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare: And this ambitious foul infirmity,
In having much, torments us with defect
Of that we have: so then we do neglect
The thing we have; and, all for want of wit,
Make something nothing, by augmenting it.
Such hazard now must doting Tarquin make,
Pawning his honour to obtain his lust;
And for himself himself he must forsake:
Then where is truth, if there be no self-trust?
When shall he think to find a stranger just,
When he himself himself confounds, betrays
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: sometimes winding over or between masses of jagged rock. But at last
Kwairyo found himself upon a cleared space at the top of a hill, with a
full moon shining overhead; and he saw before him a small thatched cottage,
cheerfully lighted from within. The woodcutter led him to a shed at the
back of the house, whither water had been conducted, through bamboo-pipes,
from some neighboring stream; and the two men washed their feet. Beyond the
shed was a vegetable garden, and a grove of cedars and bamboos; and beyond
the trees appeared the glimmer of a cascade, pouring from some loftier
height, and swaying in the moonshine like a long white robe.
As Kwairyo entered the cottage with his guide, he perceived four persons
-- men and women -- warming their hands at a little fire kindled in the ro
Kwaidan |
