| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Men of Iron by Howard Pyle: the matter one day--"I tell thee I will never serve them.
Prithee, what shame can be fouler than to do such menial service,
saving for one's rightful Lord?"
"Marry!" quoth Gascoyne; "I reason not of shame at this or that.
All I know is that others serve them who are haply as good and
maybe better than I be, and that if I do not serve them I get
knocked i' th' head therefore, which same goeth soothly against
my stomach."
"I judge not for thee," said Myles. "Thou art used to these
castle ways, but only I know that I will not serve them, though
they be thirty against me instead of thirteen."
Men of Iron |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Miracle Mongers and Their Methods by Harry Houdini: gathered at one end of the bed of coals, which by
this time was a fierce and glowing furnace.
``Having raised both his hands and prostrated
himself to render thanks to the god who
had taken out the `soul' of the fire, the priest
about to undergo the ordeal stood upon the
wet matting, wiped his feet lightly in the white
mixture, and while we held our breaths, and
our eyes almost leaped from their sockets in
awe-struck astonishment, he walked over the
glowing mass as unconcernedly as if treading
Miracle Mongers and Their Methods |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: his spies aiding, to send in a report within a few days to the
Maulincour family, assuring them meantime that there were no secrets
for the police of Paris.
A few days after this the police official called to see the vidame at
the Hotel de Maulincour, where he found the young baron quite
recovered from his last wound. He gave them in bureaucratic style his
thanks for the indications they had afforded him, and told them that
Bourignard was a convict, condemned to twenty years' hard labor, who
had miraculously escaped from a gang which was being transported from
Bicetre to Toulon. For thirteen years the police had been endeavoring
to recapture him, knowing that he had boldly returned to Paris; but so
Ferragus |
