| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: lowered their eyes hypocritically. The Sadducees turned away their
heads, fearing to offend the proconsul should they appear to
sympathise with her. Antipas was almost in a swoon.
Louder still rose the voice from the dungeon; the neighbouring hills
gave back an echo with startling effect, and Machaerus seemed actually
surrounded and showered with curses.
"Prostrate thyself in the dust, daughter of Babylon, and scourge
thyself! Remove thy girdle and thy shoes, gather up thy garments and
walk through the flowing stream; thy shame shall follow thee, thy
disgrace shall be known to all men, thy bosom shall be rent with sobs.
God execrates the stench of thy crimes! Accursed one! die like a dog!"
Herodias |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad: "But all this is beside the point. The real point is that my son,
like all fine natures, is a being of strange contradictions which
the trials of life have not yet reconciled in him. With me it is a
little different. The trials fell mainly to my share - and of
course I have lived longer. And then men are much more complex
than women, much more difficult, too. And you, Monsieur George?
Are you complex, with unexpected resistances and difficulties in
your etre intime - your inner self? I wonder now . . ."
The Blunt atmosphere seemed to vibrate all over my skin. I
disregarded the symptom. "Madame," I said, "I have never tried to
find out what sort of being I am."
The Arrow of Gold |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: complain."
"You have my name, I perceive" - he bowed to me with his arms crossed -
"though it's one I must not use myself. Well, there is a publicity - I
have shown my face and told my name too often in the beards of my
enemies. I must not wonder if both should be known to many that I know
not."
"That you know not in the least, sir," said I, "nor yet anybody else;
but the name I am called, if you care to hear it, is Balfour."
"It is a good name," he replied, civilly; "there are many decent folk
that use it. And now that I call to mind, there was a young gentleman,
your namesake, that marched surgeon in the year '45 with my battalion."
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