| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard: feeling of awe up that splendid stair, a work executed for all
time and that will, I do not doubt, be admired thousands of years
hence by generations unborn unless an earthquake should throw
it down. Even Umslopogaas, who as a general rule made it a point
of honour not to show astonishment, which he considered undignified,
was fairly startled out of himself, and asked it the 'bridge
had been built by men or devils', which was his vague way of
alluding to any supernatural power. But Alphonse did not care
about it. Its solid grandeur jarred upon the frivolous little
Frenchman, who said that it was all 'tres magnifique, mais triste
-- ah, triste!' and went on to suggest that it would be improved
Allan Quatermain |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Tanach: Numbers 11: 24 And Moses went out, and told the people the words of the LORD; and he gathered seventy men of the elders of the people, and set them round about the Tent.
Numbers 11: 25 And the LORD came down in the cloud, and spoke unto him, and took of the spirit that was upon him, and put it upon the seventy elders; and it came to pass, that, when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied, but they did so no more.
Numbers 11: 26 But there remained two men in the camp, the name of the one was Eldad, and the name of the other Medad; and the spirit rested upon them; and they were of them that were recorded, but had not gone out unto the Tent; and they prophesied in the camp.
Numbers 11: 27 And there ran a young man, and told Moses, and said: 'Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.'
Numbers 11: 28 And Joshua the son of Nun, the minister of Moses from his youth up, answered and said: 'My lord Moses, shut them in.'
Numbers 11: 29 And Moses said unto him: 'Art thou jealous for my sake? would that all the LORD'S people were prophets, that the LORD would put His spirit upon them!'
Numbers 11: 30 And Moses withdrew into the camp, he and the elders of Israel.
Numbers 11: 31 And there went forth a wind from the LORD, and brought across quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, about a day's journey on this side, and a day's journey on the other side, round about the camp, and about two cubits above the face of the earth.
The Tanach |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: carrying white mice? That word quoted from Mrs. Cadwallader seemed
like a mocking travesty wrought in the dark by an impish finger.
At Lowick Dorothea searched desk and drawer--searched all her
husband's places of deposit for private writing, but found no paper
addressed especially to her, except that "Synoptical Tabulation,"
which was probably only the beginning of many intended directions
for her guidance. In carrying out this bequest of labor to Dorothea,
as in all else, Mr. Casaubon had been slow and hesitating, oppressed in
the plan of transmitting his work, as he had been in executing it,
by the sense of moving heavily in a dim and clogging medium:
distrust of Dorothea's competence to arrange what he had prepared
Middlemarch |
