| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson: Last, coming up quite close, and in his mood
Crying, 'I count it of no more avail,
Dame, to be gentle than ungentle with you;
Take my salute,' unknightly with flat hand,
However lightly, smote her on the cheek.
Then Enid, in her utter helplessness,
And since she thought, 'He had not dared to do it,
Except he surely knew my lord was dead,'
Sent forth a sudden sharp and bitter cry,
As of a wild thing taken in the trap,
Which sees the trapper coming through the wood.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy: strange feeling with which I looked at his neck, his white neck,
in contrast with his black hair, separated by a parting, when,
with his skipping gait, like that of a bird, he left my house. I
could not help confessing to myself that this man's presence
caused me suffering. 'It is in my power,' thought I, 'to so
arrange things that I shall never see him again. But can it be
that I, _I_, fear him? No, I do not fear him. It would be too
humiliating!'
"And there in the hall, knowing that my wife heard me, I insisted
that he should come that very evening with his violin. He
promised me, and went away. In the evening he arrived with his
The Kreutzer Sonata |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: death-throes had bitten the ankles of Madame de San-Real, who still
held in her hand her dagger, dripping blood. The hair of the Marquise
had been torn out, she was covered with bites, many of which were
bleeding, and her torn dress revealed her in a state of semi-nudity,
with the scratches on her breasts. She was sublime so. Her head, eager
and maddened, exhaled the odor of blood. Her panting mouth was open,
and her nostrils were not sufficient for her breath. There are certain
animals who fall upon their enemy in their rage, do it to death, and
seem in the tranquillity of victory to have forgotten it. There are
others who prowl around their victim, who guard it in fear lest it
should be taken away from them, and who, like the Achilles of Homer,
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
