| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: crowns of skin to put upon their own heads. The Eaters of Uncleanness
were atrocious in their devices. They envenomed the wounds by pouring
into them dust, vinegar, and fragments of pottery; others waited
behind; blood flowed, and they rejoiced like vintagers round fuming
vats.
Matho, however, was seated on the ground, at the very place where he
had happened to be when the battle ended, his elbows on his knees, and
his temples in his hands; he saw nothing, heard nothing, and had
ceased to think.
At the shrieks of joy uttered by the crowd he raised his head. Before
him a strip of canvas caught on a flagpole, and trailing on the
Salammbo |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: of the letters he had forgotten entirely; and of what he did
remember, he did not know exactly which to use. And while he was
working, and breathing very hard, in his earnestness, Eva alighted,
like a bird, on the round of his chair behind him, and peeped over
his shoulder.
"O, Uncle Tom! what funny things you _are_ making, there!"
"I'm trying to write to my poor old woman, Miss Eva, and
my little chil'en," said Tom, drawing the back of his hand over
his eyes; "but, some how, I'm feard I shan't make it out."
"I wish I could help you, Tom! I've learnt to write some.
Last year I could make all the letters, but I'm afraid I've
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Nada the Lily by H. Rider Haggard: gates of coal, through which came blackness and groans. And as she
pointed, so those who greeted her turned, and went, some through the
gates of light and some through the gates of blackness.
Presently, as I stood, a handful of people came up from the bank of
the river. I looked on them and knew them. There was Unandi, the
mother of Chaka, there was Anadi, my wife, and Moosa, my son, and all
my other wives and children, and those who had perished with them.
They stood before the figure of the woman, the Princess of the
Heavens, to whom the Umkulunkulu has given it to watch over the people
of the Zulu, and cried aloud, "Hail, Inkosazana-y-Zulu! Hail!"
Then she, the Inkosazana, pointed with the rod of ivory to the gates
Nada the Lily |
