| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: Alack-a-day, replies the fellow, why 'tis in print, and the whole
town knows you are dead; why, there's Mr. White the joiner is but
fitting screws to your coffin, he'll be here with it in an
instant: he was afraid you would have wanted it before this time.
Sirrah, Sirrah, says I, you shall know tomorrow to your cost,
that I am alive, and alive like to be. Why, 'tis strange, sir,
says he, you should make such a secret of your death to us that
are your neighbours; it looks as if you had a design to defraud
the church of its dues; and let me tell you, for one that has
lived so long by the heavens, that's unhandsomely done. Hist,
Hist, says another rogue that stood by him, away Doctor, in your
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lost Continent by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Where is she?"
The child's sobs increased, and she flung herself upon the
dirt floor of the hut, apparently overcome by grief.
"What is it?" I asked. "Why do you cry?"
"The queen, my mother, will not come to you," she said,
between sobs. "She is dead. Buckingham has killed her.
Now he will take Victory, for Victory is queen. He kept us
fastened up in our shelter, for fear that Victory would
escape him, but I dug a hole beneath the back wall and got
out. I came to you, because you saved Victory once before,
and I thought that you might save her again, and me, also.
Lost Continent |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: before us, self-betrayed, as a poor, ugly, sickly wench, or perhaps
a strapping market-woman. Authors, at least, know it well; a
heroine will too often start the trick of "getting ugly;" and no
disease is more difficult to cure. I said authors; but indeed I
had a side eye to one author in particular, with whose works I am
very well acquainted, though I cannot read them, and who has spent
many vigils in this cause, sitting beside his ailing puppets and
(like a magician) wearying his art to restore them to youth and
beauty. There are others who ride too high for these misfortunes.
Who doubts the loveliness of Rosalind? Arden itself was not more
lovely. Who ever questioned the perennial charm of Rose Jocelyn,
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