| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: LOUD AND LOW IN THE CHIMNEY
LOUD and low in the chimney
The squalls suspire;
Then like an answer dwindles
And glows the fire,
And the chamber reddens and darkens
In time like taken breath.
Near by the sounding chimney
The youth apart
Hearkens with changing colour
And leaping heart,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: the pumps. I had one dismal glimpse of it as I braced myself up to
receive upon my breast the last man to leave her, the captain, who
literally let himself fall into my arms.
It had been a weirdly silent rescue - a rescue without a hail,
without a single uttered word, without a gesture or a sign, without
a conscious exchange of glances. Up to the very last moment those
on board stuck to their pumps, which spouted two clear streams of
water upon their bare feet. Their brown skin showed through the
rents of their shirts; and the two small bunches of half-naked,
tattered men went on bowing from the waist to each other in their
back-breaking labour, up and down, absorbed, with no time for a
The Mirror of the Sea |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: They didn't care for the things it was supposed necessary to care
for in the intercourse of the world. They ended one day - they
never knew which of them expressed it first - by throwing out the
idea that they didn't care for each other. Over this idea they
grew quite intimate; they rallied to it in a way that marked a
fresh start in their confidence. If to feel deeply together about
certain things wholly distinct from themselves didn't constitute a
safety, where was safety to be looked for? Not lightly nor often,
not without occasion nor without emotion, any more than in any
other reference by serious people to a mystery of their faith; but
when something had happened to warm, as it were, the air for it,
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