| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: one end of the plain to the other. They felt the mountain with their
hands, seeking to discover a passage.
At last day broke; and they perceived all about them a great white
wall hewn with the pick. And no means of safety, no hope! The two
natural outcomes from this blind alley were closed by the portcullis
and the heaps of rocks.
Then they all looked at one another without speaking. They sank down
in collapse, feeling an icy coldness in their loins, and an
overwhelming weight upon their eyelids.
They rose, and bounded against the rocks. But the lowest were weighted
by the pressure of the others, and were immovable. They tried to cling
Salammbo |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather: uttered this feeling in cutting terms, and to have set each other
on, as it were, in the gruesome game of intemperate reproach.
Some of them remembered having seen a miserable street cat set at
bay by a ring of tormentors.
As for Paul, he ran down the hill whistling the "Soldiers' Chorus"
from Faust, looking wildly behind him now and then to see
whether some of his teachers were not there to writhe under his
lightheartedness. As it was now late in the afternoon and Paul
was on duty that evening as usher at Carnegie Hall, he decided
that he would not go home to supper. When he reached the
concert hall the doors were not yet open and, as it was chilly
The Troll Garden and Selected Stories |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Mansion by Henry van Dyke: adventures
and triumphs would have made a far richer, more imposing history,
full of contacts with the great events and personages of the
time.
But somehow or other he did not care to speak much about it,
walking on that wide heavenly moorland, under that tranquil,
sunless arch of blue, in that free air of perfect peace, where
the light
was diffused without a shadow, as if the spirit of life in all
things
were luminous.
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