| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Glasses by Henry James: stopped on my lips all sound of salutation. She had mistaken my
entrance for that of another person, a pair of lips without a
moustache. She was feeling me to see who I was! With the
perception of this and of her not seeing me I sat gaping at her and
at the wild word that didn't come, the right word to express or to
disguise my dismay. What was the right word to commemorate one's
sudden discovery, at the very moment too at which one had been most
encouraged to count on better things, that one's dear old friend
had gone blind? Before the answer to this question dropped upon
me--and the moving moments, though few, seemed many--I heard, with
the sound of voices, the click of the attendant's key on the other
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: example, is certainly from a Chinese source. But the story-teller, in every
case, has so recolored and reshaped his borrowing as to naturalize it...
One queer tale, "Yuki-Onna," was told me by a farmer of Chofu,
Nishitama-gori, in Musashi province, as a legend of his native village.
Whether it has ever been written in Japanese I do not know; but the
extraordinary belief which it records used certainly to exist in most parts
of Japan, and in many curious forms... The incident of "Riki-Baka" was a
personal experience; and I wrote it down almost exactly as it happened,
changing only a family-name mentioned by the Japanese narrator.
L.H.
Tokyo, Japan, January 20th, 1904.
Kwaidan |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Flower Fables by Louisa May Alcott: till you come to sunlight again. I will carry comfort to the
patient woman, as my sisters have already done, and tell her you are
faithful still."
Then on went the never-tiring Breeze, over forest, hill, and field,
till the sky grew dark, and bleak winds whistled by. Then Ripple,
folded in the soft, warm leaf, looked sadly down on the earth,
that seemed to lie so desolate and still beneath its shroud of snow,
and thought how bitter cold the leaves and flowers must be; for the
little Water-Spirit did not know that Winter spread a soft white
covering above their beds, that they might safely sleep below till
Spring should waken them again. So she went sorrowfully on, till
Flower Fables |
