| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: Harbouring odious thoughts and the baseless fears of the base;
In silence accepted the gift and sent the giver away.
So Tamatea departed, turning his back on the day.
And lo! as the king sat brooding, a rumour rose in the crowd;
The yottowas nudged and whispered, the commons murmured aloud;
Tittering fell upon all at sight of the impudent thing,
At the sight of a gift unroyal flung in the face of a king.
And the face of the king turned white and red with anger and shame
In their midst; and the heart in his body was water and then was flame;
Till of a sudden, turning, he gripped an aito hard,
A youth that stood with his omare, (8) one of the daily guard,
Ballads |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: common racial legends about Buddai, the gigantic old man who lies
asleep for ages underground with his head on his arm, and who
will some day awake and eat up the world.
There are some very
old and half-forgotten tales of enormous underground huts of great
stones, where passages lead down and down, and where horrible
things have happened. The blackfellows claim that once some warriors,
fleeing in battle, went down into one and never came back, but
that frightful winds began to blow from the place soon after they
went down. However, there usually isn't much in what these natives
say.
Shadow out of Time |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: for my br. Holmes was not yet return'd, and had not written about me.
My unexpected appearance surpriz'd the family; all were, however,
very glad to see me, and made me welcome, except my brother.
I went to see him at his printing-house. I was better dress'd than ever
while in his service, having a genteel new suit from head to foot,
a watch, and my pockets lin'd with near five pounds sterling in silver.
He receiv'd me not very frankly, look'd me all over, and turn'd to his
work again.
The journeymen were inquisitive where I had been, what sort of a
country it was, and how I lik'd it. I prais'd it much, the happy
life I led in it, expressing strongly my intention of returning
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
