| 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: was one which I did not feel at liberty to dispute. The brother
had been led to his resolution (so he told me) by consideration
of the unusual character of the malady of the deceased, of
certain obtrusive and eager inquiries on the part of her medical
men, and of the remote and exposed situation of the burial-ground
of the family. I will not deny that when I called to mind the
sinister countenance of the person whom I met upon the staircase,
on the day of my arrival at the house, I had no desire to oppose
what I regarded as at best but a harmless, and by no means an
unnatural, precaution.
At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the
The Fall of the House of Usher |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: Flowers and even pebbles in the earth had their own life and disposition,
and brought back the feelings of a child to whom they were companions.
Looking up, her eye was caught by the line of the mountains flying
out energetically across the sky like the lash of a curling whip.
She looked at the pale distant sky, and the high bare places on
the mountain-tops lying exposed to the sun. When she sat down she
had dropped her books on to the earth at her feet, and now she
looked down on them lying there, so square in the grass, a tall
stem bending over and tickling the smooth brown cover of Gibbon,
while the mottled blue Balzac lay naked in the sun. With a feeling
that to open and read would certainly be a surprising experience,
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: For household news--what have you heard, I wonder?
You must have heard that Paul was dead, by this time--
Of spinal cancer. Nothing could be done--
We found it out too late. His death has changed me,
Deflected much of me that lived as he lived,
Saddened me, slowed me down. Such things will happen,
Life is composed of them; and it seems wisdom
To see them clearly, meditate upon them,
And understand what things flow out of them.
Otherwise, all goes on here much as always.
Why won't you come and see us, in the spring,
|
