| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: whose rays often overcome you. You know no more how light makes itself
seen within you, than you know the simple and natural process which
changes it on the throats of tropic birds to rubies, sapphires,
emeralds, and opals, or keeps it gray and brown on the breasts of the
same birds under the cloudy skies of Europe, or whitens it here in the
bosom of our polar Nature. You know not how to decide whether color is
a faculty with which all substances are endowed, or an effect produced
by an effluence of light. You admit the saltness of the sea without
being able to prove that the water is salt at its greatest depth. You
recognize the existence of various substances which span what you
think to be the void,--substances which are not tangible under any of
Seraphita |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: ran I drew one of my pitifully futile weapons. Ah! Could
I but have had my lost express-gun in my hands at that
moment! A single well-placed shot would have crumbled
even this great monster. The best I could hope to ac-
complish was to divert the thing from the girl to myself
and then to place as many bullets as possible in it before
it reached and mauled me into insensibility and death.
There is a certain unwritten law of the arena that
vouchsafes freedom and immunity to the victor, be he
beast or human being--both of whom, by the way, are
all the same to the Mahar. That is, they were accus-
Pellucidar |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: with horror at the one in her arms, who, seeming to understand the
contemptuous loathing of her tired glance, doubled his fists, stiffened his
body, and began violently screaming.
"Ts--ts--ts." She laid him on the settle and went back to her floor-
washing. He never ceased crying for a moment, but she got quite used to it
and kept time with her broom. Oh, how tired she was! Oh, the heavy broom
handle and the burning spot just at the back of her neck that ached so, and
a funny little fluttering feeling just at the back of her waistband, as
though something were going to break.
The clock struck six. She set the pan of milk in the oven, and went into
the next room to wake and dress the three children. Anton and Hans lay
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