| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: old lady. But how it took her was--she thought she'd lost something. She
couldn't keep still, she couldn't settle. All day long she'd be up and
down, up and down; you'd meet her everywhere,--on the stairs, in the porch,
making for the kitchen. And she'd look up at you, and she'd say--just like
a child, "I've lost it, I've lost it." "Come along," I'd say, "come along,
and I'll lay out your patience for you." But she'd catch me by the hand--I
was a favourite of hers--and whisper, "Find it for me, Ellen. Find it for
me." Sad, wasn't it?
...No, she never recovered, madam. She had a stroke at the end. Last
words she ever said was--very slow, "Look in--the--Look--in--" And then
she was gone.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: thy universe recoiled from thee!
"Then old men succeeded to thy young lovers; decrepitude came to thy
feet and made thee hideous. Yet, even then, men with the eagle power
of vision said to thee in a glance, 'Thou shalt perish ingloriously,
because thou hast fallen away, because thou hast broken the vows of
thy maidenhood. The angel with peace written on her forehead, who
should have shed light and joy along her path, has been a Messalina,
delighting in the circus, in debauchery, and abuse of power. The days
of thy virginity cannot return; henceforward thou shalt be subject to
a master. Thy hour has come; the hand of death is upon thee. Thy heirs
believe that thou art rich; they will kill thee and find nothing. Yet
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: Unlike all others in all things, formerly thou wouldst bid thy lovers
fast, and they obeyed. Why should thy fancies have led thee to require
things impossible? Why, like a courtesan spoiled by her lovers, hast
thou doted on follies, and left those undeceived who sought to explain
and justify all thy errors? Then came the days of thy later passions,
terrible like the love of a woman of forty years, with a fierce cry
thou hast sought to clasp the whole universe in one last embrace--and
thy universe recoiled from thee!
"Then old men succeeded to thy young lovers; decrepitude came to thy
feet and made thee hideous. Yet, even then, men with the eagle power
of vision said to thee in a glance, 'Thou shalt perish ingloriously,
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