| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: a pickaxe, and reluctantly he gave it up and turned his attention
to the lean-to and the buried stove.
The stove lay in a shallow pit, filled with ancient ashes and
crumbled bits of wood from the roof. It lay on its side, its
sheet-iron sides collapsed, its long chimney disintegrated. He
was in a heavy sweat before he had uncovered it and was able to
remove it from its bed of ashes and pine needles. This done, he
brought his candle-lantern and settled himself cross-legged on the
ground.
His first casual inspection of the ashes revealed nothing. He set
to work more carefully then, picking them up by handfuls, examining
The Breaking Point |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: to invoke the skies. Her sufferings seemed of a kind that are told to
God alone. The silence was unbroken save for the chirp of crickets and
the shrill whirr of a few locusts, coming from the little garden then
hotter than an oven, and the dull sound of silver and plates, and the
moving of chairs in the adjoining room, where a servant was preparing
to serve the dinner.
At this moment, the distressed woman roused herself from her
abstraction and listened attentively; she took her handkerchief, wiped
away her tears, attempted to smile, and so resolutely effaced the
expression of pain that was stamped on every feature that she
presently seemed in the state of happy indifference which comes with a
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: "or, if you are, don't show it. If by nature you are volcanoes,
at least be only smouldering ones. Don't look pleased,
don't look interested, don't, above all things, look eager.
Calm indifference should be written on every feature of your faces.
Never show that you like any one person, or any one thing.
Be cool, languid, and reserved. If you don't do as your
mother tells you and are just gushing, frisky, young idiots,
snubs will be your portion. If you do as she tells you,
you'll marry princes and live happily ever after."
Dr. Grill must be a German rose. In this part of
the world the more you are pleased to see a person the less
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
