| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: She gazed at the formless sketch with the deep absorption which
memories of happiness produce when they are roused and fall on
the heart like a beneficent dew to whose refreshing touch we love
to yield ourselves up; but in the expression of the old lady's
face there were traces too of perennial regret. At least, it was
thus that the painter chose to interpret her attitude and
countenance, and he presently sat down again by her side.
"Madame," he said, "in a very short time the colors of that
pastel will have disappeared. The portrait will only survive in
your memory. Where you will still see the face that is dear to
you, others will see nothing at all. Will you allow me to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White: small things scurry and squeak; a certain weird bird of the
curlew or plover sort wails like a lonesome soul. Especially by
the river, as here, are the boomings of the weirdest of weird
bullfrogs, and the splashings and swishings of crocodile and
hippopotamus. One is impressed with the busyness of the world
surrounding him; every bird or beast, the hunter and the hunted,
is the centre of many important affairs. The world swarms.
And then, some miles away a lion roars, the earth and air
vibrating to the sheer power of the sound. The world falls to a
blank dead silence. For a full minute every living creature of
the jungle or of the veldt holds its breath. Their lord has
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll: (Drawn "to bearer") for seven-pounds-ten:
But the Bandersnatch merely extended its neck
And grabbed at the Banker again.
Without rest or pause--while those frumious jaws
Went savagely snapping around-
He skipped and he hopped, and he floundered and flopped,
Till fainting he fell to the ground.
The Bandersnatch fled as the others appeared
Led on by that fear-stricken yell:
And the Bellman remarked "It is just as I feared!"
And solemnly tolled on his bell.
The Hunting of the Snark |
