| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle: hum of bees seemed to make it all the more incongruous. And still
the elderly Quaker skipper talked on and on with hardly an
interruption, till the warm sun slanted to the west and the day
began to decline.
That evening Mainwaring stayed to tea and when he parted from
Lucinda Fairbanks it was after nightfall, with a clear, round
moon shining in the milky sky and a radiance pallid and unreal
enveloping the old house, the blooming apple trees, the sloping
lawn and the shining river beyond. He implored his sweetheart to
let him tell her uncle and aunt of their acknowledged love and to
ask the old man's consent to it, but she would not permit him to
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen: discoveries. Theories and discoveries! Where they are standing
now, I stood fifteen years ago, and I need not tell you that I
have not been standing still for the last fifteen years. It
will be enough if I say that five years ago I made the discovery
that I alluded to when I said that ten years ago I reached the
goal. After years of labour, after years of toiling and groping
in the dark, after days and nights of disappointments and
sometimes of despair, in which I used now and then to tremble
and grow cold with the thought that perhaps there were others
seeking for what I sought, at last, after so long, a pang of
sudden joy thrilled my soul, and I knew the long journey was at
The Great God Pan |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: its humming tune up on the level, and I could see the tall grasses wave.
The earth was warm under me, and warm as I crumbled it through my fingers.
Queer little red bugs came out and moved in slow squadrons around me.
Their backs were polished vermilion, with black spots. I kept as still
as I could. Nothing happened. I did not expect anything to happen.
I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins,
and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy.
Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire,
whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate,
that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great.
When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.
My Antonia |
