| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: constitutional and a family evil, and one for which he despaired
to find a remedy--a mere nervous affection, he immediately added,
which would undoubtedly soon pass off. It displayed itself in a
host of unnatural sensations. Some of these, as he detailed
them, interested and bewildered me; although, perhaps, the terms,
and the general manner of the narration had their weight. He
suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most
insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of
certain texture; the odours of all flowers were oppressive; his
eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and there were but
peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments, which did
The Fall of the House of Usher |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: [Here Monsieur Taillefer coughed, drew out his handkerchief to blow
his nose, and wiped his forehead. These perfectly natural motions were
noticed by me only; the other guests sat with their eyes fixed on
Monsieur Hermann, to whom they were listening with a sort of avidity.
The purveyor leaned his elbow on the table, put his head into his
right hand and gazed fixedly at Hermann. From that moment he showed no
other sign of emotion or interest, but his face remained passive and
ghastly, as it was when I first saw him playing with the stopper of
the decanter.]
The surgical instrument which the murderer had used was on the table
with the case containing the rest of the instruments, together with
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Pool in the Desert by Sara Jeanette Duncan: her head more willingly the other way, towards the hills rolling up
to the snows, being a woman who suffered by proxy, and by
observation, and by Rudyard Kipling.
On this particular morning, however, she had not elected to do
either. She slept late instead, and was glad to sleep. I might as
well say at once that on the night before she had made up her mind,
had brought herself to the point, and had written to Mrs. Innes, at
'Two Gables', all the facts, in so far as she was acquainted with
them, connected with Frederick Prendergast's death. She was very
much ashamed of herself, poor girl; she was aware that, through her
postponement, Horace Innes would now see his problem in all its
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