| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens: With his head upon the landing and his great limbs flung over half-
a-dozen stairs, as carelessly as though he were a dead man whom
drunken bearers had thrown down by chance, there lay Hugh, face
uppermost, his long hair drooping like some wild weed upon his
wooden pillow, and his huge chest heaving with the sounds which so
unwontedly disturbed the place and hour.
He who came upon him so unexpectedly was about to break his rest by
thrusting him with his foot, when, glancing at his upturned face,
he arrested himself in the very action, and stooping down and
shading the candle with his hand, examined his features closely.
Close as his first inspection was, it did not suffice, for he
Barnaby Rudge |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: and distaste of life; and in the gloom of his spirits, he seemed
to read a menace in the flickering of the firelight on the
polished cabinets and the uneasy starting of the shadow on the
roof. He was ashamed of his relief, when Poole presently
returned to announce that Dr. Jekyll was gone out.
"I saw Mr. Hyde go in by the old dissecting room, Poole," he
said. "Is that right, when Dr. Jekyll is from home?"
"Quite right, Mr. Utterson, sir," replied the servant. "Mr.
Hyde has a key."
"Your master seems to repose a great deal of trust in that
young man, Poole," resumed the other musingly.
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: last of your lovers who still speaks to you. The cause of my silence has
been that I was hindered by a power more than human, of which I will some
day explain to you the nature; this impediment has now been removed; I
therefore here present myself before you, and I greatly hope that no
similar hindrance will again occur. Meanwhile, I have observed that your
pride has been too much for the pride of your admirers; they were numerous
and high-spirited, but they have all run away, overpowered by your superior
force of character; not one of them remains. And I want you to understand
the reason why you have been too much for them. You think that you have no
need of them or of any other man, for you have great possessions and lack
nothing, beginning with the body, and ending with the soul. In the first
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