| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad: instead of slashing at me he dropped down by my side and kissed me
on the cheek. Then he did it again, and by that time I was gone
dead all over and he could have done what he liked with the corpse
but he left off suddenly and then I came to life again and I bolted
away. Not very far. I couldn't leave the goats altogether. He
chased me round and about the rocks, but of course I was too quick
for him in his nice town boots. When he got tired of that game he
started throwing stones. After that he made my life very lively
for me. Sometimes he used to come on me unawares and then I had to
sit still and listen to his miserable ravings, because he would
catch me round the waist and hold me very tight. And yet, I often
The Arrow of Gold |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Wife, et al by Anton Chekhov: one's mouth, and every fold of one's fur coat. . . .
"Well, I am running a rig," I thought, while my bells chimed in
with the doctor's, the wind whistled, the coachmen shouted; and
while this frantic uproar was going on, I recalled all the
details of that strange wild day, unique in my life, and it
seemed to me that I really had gone out of my mind or become a
different man. It was as though the man I had been till that day
were already a stranger to me.
The doctor drove behind and kept talking loudly with his
coachman. From time to time he overtook me, drove side by side,
and always, with the same naive confidence that it was very
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: the subjects of King Pelias. Our monarch has summoned us
together, that we may see him sacrifice a black bull to
Neptune, who, they say, is his majesty's father. Yonder is the
king, where you see the smoke going up from the altar."
While the man spoke he eyed Jason with great curiosity; for his
garb was quite unlike that of the Iolchians, and it looked very
odd to see a youth with a leopard's skin over his shoulders,
and each hand grasping a spear. Jason perceived, too, that the
man stared particularly at his feet, one of which, you
remember, was bare, while the other was decorated with his
father's golden-stringed sandal.
Tanglewood Tales |
