| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: superior to herself, and not in ruling him. Hearts without tenderness
covet dominion, but a true love treasures abnegation, that virtue of
strength. When Etienne could not at first comprehend a demonstration,
a theme, a theory, the poor mother, who was present at the lessons,
seemed to long to infuse knowledge, as formerly she had given
nourishment at the child's least cry. And then, what joy suffused her
eyes when Etienne's mind seized the true sense of things and
appropriated it. She proved, as Pierre de Sebonde said, that a mother
is a dual being whose sensations cover two existences.
"Ah, if some woman as loving as I could infuse into him hereafter the
life of love, how happy he might be!" she often thought.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: tumbler containing the dregs of some liquid and three flies (the whole
covered over with a sheet of notepaper), a pile of rags, two
ink-encrusted pens, and a yellow toothpick with which the master of
the house had picked his teeth (apparently) at least before the coming
of the French to Moscow. As for the walls, they were hung with a
medley of pictures. Among the latter was a long engraving of a battle
scene, wherein soldiers in three-cornered hats were brandishing huge
drums and slender lances. It lacked a glass, and was set in a frame
ornamented with bronze fretwork and bronze corner rings. Beside it
hung a huge, grimy oil painting representative of some flowers and
fruit, half a water melon, a boar's head, and the pendent form of a
Dead Souls |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey: Flecks of foam flew into Venters's eyes, burning him, making him
see all the sage as red. But in that red haze he saw, or seemed
to see, Black Star suddenly riderless and with broken gait.
Wrangle thundered on to change his pace with a violent break.
Then Venters pulled him hard. From run to gallop, gallop to
canter, canter to trot, trot to walk, and walk to stop, the great
sorrel ended his race.
Venters looked back. Black Star stood riderless in the trail.
Jerry Card had taken to the sage. Far up the white trail Night
came trotting faithfully down. Venters leaped off, still half
blind, reeling dizzily. In a moment he had recovered sufficiently
Riders of the Purple Sage |
