| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy: indifferent to pain.
"Grief drove him crazy," the people said.
The fire was growing less, but Ivan still stood where he could
see it, and kept repeating to himself, "I should have taken,"
etc.
The morning after the fire the starosta (village elder) sent his
son to Ivan to tell him that the old man, his father, was dying,
and wanted to see him to bid him good-bye.
In his grief Ivan had forgotten all about his father, and could
not understand what was being said to him. In a dazed way he
asked: "What father? Whom does he want?"
The Kreutzer Sonata |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber: sun, rain and drought, scourge and flood. He had risen before
dawn and slept before sunset. In the process he had taken on
something of the color and the rugged immutability of the fields
and hills and trees among which he toiled. Something of their
dignity, too, though your town dweller might fail to see it
beneath the drab exterior. He had about him none of the
highlights and sharp points of the city man. He seemed to blend
in with the background of nature so as to be almost
undistinguishable from it, as were the furred and feathered
creatures. This farmer differed from the city man as a hillock
differs from an artificial golf bunker, though form and substance
One Basket |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: no consideration for him because of his weakness--it was no one's
business to help him in such distress, to make the fight the
least bit easier for him. Even if he took to begging, he would
be at a disadvantage, for reasons which he was to discover in
good time.
In the beginning he could not think of anything except getting
out of the awful cold. He went into one of the saloons he had
been wont to frequent and bought a drink, and then stood by the
fire shivering and waiting to be ordered out. According to an
unwritten law, the buying a drink included the privilege of
loafing for just so long; then one had to buy another drink or
|
