| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: crashed away in the undergrowth. An acrid smell of damp earth
and of decaying leaves took him by the throat, and he drew back
with a scared face, as if he had been touched by the breath of
Death itself. The very air seemed dead in there--heavy and
stagnating, poisoned with the corruption of countless ages. He
went on, staggering on his way, urged by the nervous restlessness
that made him feel tired yet caused him to loathe the very idea
of immobility and repose. Was he a wild man to hide in the woods
and perhaps be killed there--in the darkness--where there was no
room to breathe? He would wait for his enemies in the sunlight,
where he could see the sky and feel the breeze. He knew how a
Almayer's Folly |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling: The great man-seal haul out of the sea, a-roaring, band by band;
And when the first September gales have slaked their rutting-wrath,
The great man-seal haul back to the sea and no man knows their path.
Then dark they lie and stark they lie -- rookery, dune, and floe,
And the Northern Lights come down o' nights to dance with the houseless snow;
And God Who clears the grounding berg and steers the grinding floe,
He hears the cry of the little kit-fox and the wind along the snow.
But since our women must walk gay and money buys their gear,
The sealing-boats they filch that way at hazard year by year.
English they be and Japanee that hang on the Brown Bear's flank,
And some be Scot, but the worst of the lot, and the boldest thieves, be Yank!
Verses 1889-1896 |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed by Edna Ferber: Frau Nirlanger, yes?"
"Interest! I'm eaten up with curiosity. You shan't
leave this room alive until you've told me!"
Frau Knapf shook with silent mirth. "Now you make
jokings, ain't? Well, I tell you. In Vienna, Frau
Nirlanger was a widow, from a family aber hoch edel--very
high born. From the court her family is, and friends
from the Emperor, und alles. Sure! Frau Nirlanger, she
is different from the rest. Books she likes, und
meetings, und all such komisch things. And what you
think!"
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