| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Land that Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: forever beyond the ken of man other than in that lost pocket of
the earth whither fate has borne me and where my doom is sealed.
I am here and here must remain.
After reading this far, my interest, which already had been
stimulated by the finding of the manuscript, was approaching
the boiling-point. I had come to Greenland for the summer, on the
advice of my physician, and was slowly being bored to extinction,
as I had thoughtlessly neglected to bring sufficient reading-matter.
Being an indifferent fisherman, my enthusiasm for this form of
sport soon waned; yet in the absence of other forms of recreation
I was now risking my life in an entirely inadequate boat off Cape
The Land that Time Forgot |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: sea-shells. The outgoing tide exposed star-fish and sea-urchins, and
the children tried to catch the flakes of foam which the wind blew
away. The sleepy waves lapping the sand unfurled themselves along the
shore that extended as far as the eye could see, but where land began,
it was limited by the downs which separated it from the "Swamp," a
large meadow shaped like a hippodrome. When they went home that way,
Trouville, on the slope of a hill below, grew larger and larger as
they advanced, and, with all its houses of unequal height, seemed to
spread out before them in a sort of giddy confusion.
When the heat was too oppressive, they remained in their rooms. The
dazzling sunlight cast bars of light between the shutters. Not a sound
A Simple Soul |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson: O Leerie, see a little child and nod to him to-night!
XXXI
My Bed is a Boat
My bed is like a little boat;
Nurse helps me in when I embark;
She girds me in my sailor's coat
And starts me in the dark.
At night I go on board and say
Good-night to all my friends on shore;
I shut my eyes and sail away
And see and hear no more.
A Child's Garden of Verses |
