| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: bridges, and haunted houses, and particularly of the headless
horseman, or Galloping Hessian of the Hollow, as they sometimes
called him. He would delight them equally by his anecdotes of
witchcraft, and of the direful omens and portentous sights and
sounds in the air, which prevailed in the earlier times of
Connecticut; and would frighten them woefully with speculations
upon comets and shooting stars; and with the alarming fact that
the world did absolutely turn round, and that they were half the
time topsy-turvy!
But if there was a pleasure in all this, while snugly
cuddling in the chimney corner of a chamber that was all of a
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Copy-Cat & Other Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: Christopher had lost middle age in a day's time.
He had the look of a triumphant youth. Blue smoke
was curling from the chimney. Stephen smelled
bacon frying, and coffee.
Christopher greeted him with the joyousness of
a child. "Lord!" said he, "did Myrtle send you up
with all those things? Well, she is a good woman.
Guess I would have been cold last night if I hadn't
been so happy. How is Myrtle?"
"She seemed to take it very sensibly when I told
her."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche: somnolent senses.
But beauty's voice speaketh gently: it appealeth only to the most awakened
souls.
Gently vibrated and laughed unto me to-day my buckler; it was beauty's holy
laughing and thrilling.
At you, ye virtuous ones, laughed my beauty to-day. And thus came its
voice unto me: "They want--to be paid besides!"
Ye want to be paid besides, ye virtuous ones! Ye want reward for virtue,
and heaven for earth, and eternity for your to-day?
And now ye upbraid me for teaching that there is no reward-giver, nor
paymaster? And verily, I do not even teach that virtue is its own reward.
Thus Spake Zarathustra |
