| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: After scoring over my calmness in this graphic way he nodded
wisely. If I had seen the sight, he assured me, I would never
forget it as long as I lived. The weather was too bad to give the
corpse a proper sea burial. So next day at dawn they took it up on
the poop, covering its face with a bit of bunting; he read a short
prayer, and then, just as it was, in its oilskins and long boots,
they launched it amongst those mountainous seas that seemed ready
every moment to swallow up the ship herself and the terrified lives
on board of her.
"That reefed foresail saved you," I threw in.
"Under God - it did," he exclaimed fervently. "It was by a special
'Twixt Land & Sea |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: met with no one just now; the region being a sterile one, the
Barbarians had not passed that way.
Gradually the devastation began again. Sometimes a piece of mosaic
would be displayed in the centre of a field, the sole remnant of a
vanished mansion; and the leafless olive trees looked at a distance
like large bushes of thorns. They passed through a town in which
houses were burnt to the ground. Human skeletons might be seen along
the walls. There were some, too, of dromedaries and mules. Half-gnawed
carrion blocked the streets.
Night fell. The sky was lowering and cloudy.
They ascended again for two hours in a westerly direction, when
Salammbo |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: him his work accomplished, to realize all his hopes, to give
expression to the only need for gratitude that ever filled my
heart, to quench a fire that burns in me to this day.
"Bourgeat, my second father, died in my arms," Desplein went on,
after a pause, visibly moved. "He left me everything he possessed
by a will he had had made by a public scrivener, dating from the
year when we had gone to live in the Cour de Rohan.
"This man's faith was perfect; he loved the Holy Virgin as he
might have loved his wife. He was an ardent Catholic, but never
said a word to me about my want of religion. When he was dying he
entreated me to spare no expense that he might have every
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