| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: simple ignorance of the mechanical part of his art chilled all
inspiration and formed an impassable barrier to his imagination. His
brush returned involuntarily to hackneyed forms: hands folded
themselves in a set attitude; heads dared not make any unusual turn;
the very garments turned out commonplace, and would not drape
themselves to any unaccustomed posture of the body. And he felt and
saw this all himself.
"But had I really any talent?" he said at length: "did not I deceive
myself?" Uttering these words, he turned to the early works which he
had painted so purely, so unselfishly, in former days, in his wretched
cabin yonder in lonely Vasilievsky Ostroff. He began attentively to
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac: he saw their preparations for his visit, but it was at once repressed.
He heard mass, said his prayer, and then disappeared, declining, with
a few polite words, Mademoiselle de Langeais' invitation to partake of
the little collation made ready for him.
After the 9th Thermidor, the Sisters and the Abbe de Marolles could go
about Paris without the least danger. The first time that the abbe
went out he walked to a perfumer's shop at the sign of The Queen of
Roses, kept by the Citizen Ragon and his wife, court perfumers. The
Ragons had been faithful adherents of the Royalist cause; it was
through their means that the Vendean leaders kept up a correspondence
with the Princes and the Royalist Committee in Paris. The abbe, in the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: They pass on.
THE CONVENT OF HIRSCHAU IN THE BLACK FOREST.
The Convent cellar. FRIAR CLAUS comes in with a light and a
basket of empty flagons.
FRIAR CLAUS.
I always enter this sacred place
With a thoughtful, solemn, and reverent pace,
Pausing long enough on each stair
To breathe an ejaculatory prayer,
And a benediction on the vines
That produce these various sorts of wines!
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