| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: road again upon a higher level. It was my one serious conflict
with Modestine. She would none of my short cut; she turned in my
face; she backed, she reared; she, whom I had hitherto imagined to
be dumb, actually brayed with a loud hoarse flourish, like a cock
crowing for the dawn. I plied the goad with one hand; with the
other, so steep was the ascent, I had to hold on the pack-saddle.
Half-a-dozen times she was nearly over backwards on the top of me;
half-a-dozen times, from sheer weariness of spirit, I was nearly
giving it up, and leading her down again to follow the road. But I
took the thing as a wager, and fought it through. I was surprised,
as I went on my way again, by what appeared to be chill rain-drops
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: reserved it, in order that if God should grant him, in his old age, to
meet again the comrade of his youth, they might over it recall
together former days, when a man enjoyed himself otherwise and better
than now. Kukubenko cast his eyes around, and said, "I thank God that
it has been my lot to die before your eyes, comrades. May they live
better who come after us than we have lived; and may our Russian land,
beloved by Christ, flourish forever!" and his young spirit fled. The
angels took it in their arms and bore it to heaven: it will be well
with him there. "Sit down at my right hand, Kukubenko," Christ will
say to him: "you never betrayed your comrades, you never committed a
dishonourable act, you never sold a man into misery, you preserved and
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Message by Honore de Balzac: the way among the trees.
I must make a full confession. I stopped behind the last shrub in
the avenue, pulled up my collar, rubbed my shabby hat and my
trousers with the cuffs of my sleeves, dusted my coat with the
sleeves themselves, and gave them a final cleansing rub one
against the other. I buttoned my coat carefully so as to exhibit
the inner, always the least worn, side of the cloth, and finally
had turned down the tops of my trousers over my boots,
artistically cleaned in the grass. Thanks to this Gascon toilet,
I could hope that the lady would not take me for the local rate
collector; but now when my thoughts travel back to that episode
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