| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: another--Gabba Bavrilonovitch, our Ivan Ivanovitch, Elevferiy
Elevferievitch, Makar Nazarevitch, Thoma Grigorovitch--I can say no
more: my powers fail me, my hand stops writing. And how many ladies
were there! dark and fair, tall and short, some fat like Ivan
Nikiforovitch, and some so thin that it seemed as though each one
might hide herself in the scabbard of the chief's sword. What
head-dresses! what costumes! red, yellow, coffee-colour, green, blue,
new, turned, re-made dresses, ribbons, reticules. Farewell, poor eyes!
you will never be good for anything any more after such a spectacle.
And how long the table was drawn out! and how all talked! and what a
noise they made! What is a mill with its driving-wheel, stones, beams,
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: "Spare me, I entreat you," replied Aunt Margaret. "You remember
the Gaelic song, though I dare say I mispronounce the words--
'Hatil mohatil, na dowski mi.'
(I am asleep, do not waken me.)
I tell you, kinsman, that the sort of waking dreams which my
imagination spins out, in what your favourite Wordsworth calls
'moods of my own mind,' are worth all the rest of my more active
days. Then, instead of looking forwards, as I did in youth, and
forming for myself fairy palaces, upon the verge of the grave I
turn my eyes backward upon the days and manners of my better
time; and the sad, yet soothing recollections come so close and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: And death was observed with sudden cries,
And birth with laughter and pain.
And the trees grew taller and blacker against the skies
And night came down again.
IV.
Up high black walls, up sombre terraces,
Clinging like luminous birds to the sides of cliffs,
The yellow lights went climbing towards the sky.
From high black walls, gleaming vaguely with rain,
Each yellow light looked down like a golden eye.
They trembled from coign to coign, and tower to tower,
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