| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: had hardly begun to grow a little clearer to him, when a new,
insoluble question presented itself--death.
"Why, he's dying--yes, he'll die in the spring, and how help him?
What can I say to him? What do I know about it? I'd even
forgotten that it was at all."
Chapter 32
Levin had long before made the observation that when one is
uncomfortable with people from their being excessively amenable
and meek, one is apt very soon after to find things intolerable
from their touchiness and irritability. He felt that this was how
it would be with his brother. And his brother Nikolay's
Anna Karenina |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: that I saw a fallen flower return to the branch... No: it was only a
butterfly.
[8] Alluding probably to the light fluttering motion of falling cherry-petals.
[9] That is to say, the grace of their motion makes one think of the grace
of young girls, daintily costumed, in robes with long fluttering sleeves...
And old Japanese proverb declares that even a devil is pretty at eighteen:
Oni mo jiu-hachi azami no hana: "Even a devil at eighteen,
flower-of-the-thistle."
[10] Or perhaps the verses might be more effectively rendered thus: "Happy
together, do you say? Yes -- if we should be reborn as field-butterflies in
some future life: then we might accord!" This poem was composed by the
Kwaidan |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: The mountain paths began to show signs of life. Shepherds were driving
their flocks to pasture; children urged heavy-laden donkeys along the
roads; while grooms belonging to the palace led the horses to the
river to drink. The wayfarers descending from the heights on the
farther side of Machaerus disappeared behind the castle; others
ascended from the valleys, and after arriving at the palace deposited
their burdens in the courtyard. Many of these were purveyors to the
tetrarch; others were the servants of his expected guests, arriving in
advance of their masters.
Suddenly, at the foot of the terrace on the left, an Essene appeared;
he wore a white robe, his feet were bare, and his demeanour indicated
Herodias |
