| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: Stood, like a streaming torch, enlightening land and sea.
But the mother of Tamatea threw her arms abroad,
"Pyre of my son," she shouted, 'debited vengeance of God,
Late, late, I behold you, yet I behold you at last,
And glory, beholding! For now are the days of my agony past,
The lust that famished my soul now eats and drinks its desire,
And they that encompassed my son shrivel alive in the fire.
Tenfold precious the vengeance that comes after lingering years!
Ye quenched the voice of my singer? - hark, in your dying ears,
The song of the conflagration! Ye left me a widow alone?
- Behold, the whole of your race consumes, sinew and bone
Ballads |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: Then I heard an exclamation from him."
"What did he say?" demanded Jamieson.
"I couldn't hear, but his voice was strange; it sounded
startled. I waited for him to call out again, but he did not, so
I went down-stairs. He was sitting on the porch step, looking
straight ahead, as if he saw something among the trees across the
road. And he kept mumbling about having seen a ghost. He looked
queer, and I tried to get him inside, but he wouldn't move. Then
I thought I'd better go up to the house."
"Didn't he say anything else you could understand?" I asked.
"He said something about the grave giving up its dead."
The Circular Staircase |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: had no remedy but to open the doors to them, and let them
satisfy themselves, for all she could say to them would not
satisfy them. I sat still, and bid them search the room if they
pleased, for if there was anybody in the house, I was sure they
were not in my room; and as for the rest of the house, I had
nothing to say to that, I did not understand what they looked for.
Everything looked so innocent and to honest about me, that
they treated me civiller than I expected, but it was not till they
had searched the room to a nicety, even under the bed, in the
bed, and everywhere else where it was possible anything could
be hid. When they had done this, and could find nothing, they
Moll Flanders |
