| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: from beneath the wide shelter of the Pyncheon Elm! They were
wandering all abroad, on precisely such a pilgrimage as a child
often meditates, to the world's end, with perhaps a sixpence and
a biscuit in his pocket. In Hepzibah's mind, there was the
wretched consciousness of being adrift. She had lost the faculty
of self-guidance; but, in view of the difficulties around her,
felt it hardly worth an effort to regain it, and was, moreover,
incapable of making one.
As they proceeded on their strange expedition, she now and then
cast a look sidelong at Clifford, and could not but observe that
he was possessed and swayed by a powerful excitement. It was
House of Seven Gables |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Stories From the Old Attic by Robert Harris: "I wish you'd said something, too."
* As we pass through earthly life so quickly and only once, how sad
that our fear of rejection is so often stronger than our love.
Seeing is Believing
One day an idle young man was wandering through the woods not far
from his town when he happened upon an old woman standing around a
rather smoky fire and stirring a kettle. Being the modern young man
that he was, he immediately blurted out his first impression:
"Gosh, you're ugly and whatever you're cooking stinks," he told her.
"Well, if you don't like my looks," answered the old woman, "I can
fix that." She then spoke a few strange words, which were followed
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac: great Inferno scene in the fifth act; sometimes the sight of the house
absorbed him, sometimes his own thoughts; he had seen society in
Paris, and the sight had stirred him to the depths.
"So this is my kingdom," he said to himself; "this is the world that I
must conquer."
As he walked home through the streets he thought over all that had
been said by Mme. d'Espard's courtiers; memory reproducing with
strange faithfulness their demeanor, their gestures, their manner of
coming and going.
Next day, towards noon, Lucien betook himself to Staub, the great
tailor of that day. Partly by dint of entreaties, and partly by virtue
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