| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy: soldiers. "Why do you wish to destroy everything we have? If
you have more need of these things than we have, why not take
them with you and leave us in peace?"
The soldiers, becoming saddened with remorse, refused further to
pursue their path of destruction--the entire army scattering in
many directions.
CHAPTER XII.
The old devil, failing to ruin Ivan's kingdom with soldiers,
transformed himself into a nobleman, dressed exquisitely, and
became one of Ivan's subjects, with the intention of compassing
the downfall of his kingdom--as he had done with that of Tarras.
The Kreutzer Sonata |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: intense mental collectedness and concentration to which I have
previously alluded as observable only in particular moments of
the highest artificial excitement. The words of one of these
rhapsodies I have easily remembered. I was, perhaps, the more
forcibly impressed with it, as he gave it, because, in the under
or mystic current of its meaning, I fancied that I perceived, and
for the first time, a full consciousness on the part of Usher, of
the tottering of his lofty reason upon her throne. The verses,
which were entitled "The Haunted Palace," ran very nearly, if not
accurately, thus:
I.
The Fall of the House of Usher |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: they would disappear into the earth as the first one had disappeared.
His people must keep away from them, and hope for the best.
Kayerts and Carlier did not disappear, but remained above on this
earth, that, somehow, they fancied had become bigger and very empty.
It was not the absolute and dumb solitude of the post that impressed
them so much as an inarticulate feeling that something from within
them was gone, something that worked for their safety, and had kept
the wilderness from interfering with their hearts. The images of home;
the memory of people like them, of men that thought and felt as they
used to think and feel, receded into distances made indistinct by the
glare of unclouded sunshine. And out of the great silence of the
Tales of Unrest |
