| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The War in the Air by H. G. Wells: mere aggressive and acquisitive individual with no sense of the
State, no habitual loyalty, no devotion, no code of honour, no
code even of courage. Now by a curious accident he found himself
lifted out of his marvellous modern world for a time, out of all
the rush and confused appeals of it, and floating like a thing
dead and disembodied between sea and sky. It was as if Heaven
was experimenting with him, had picked him out as a sample from
the English millions, to look at him more nearly, and to see what
was happening to the soul of man. But what Heaven made of him in
that case I cannot profess to imagine, for I have long since
abandoned all theories about the ideals and satisfactions of
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: reached to the inmost heart of his wife, "I would rather have thee
scold me, than see thee so tender to my pain."
"I did not think," she said, "that after twenty years of married life
the love of a wife for her husband could deepen."
These words drove from Cesar's mind, for one brief moment, all his
sorrows; his heart was so true that they were to him a fortune. He
walked forward almost joyously to /their/ tree, which by chance had
not been felled. Husband and wife sat down beneath it, watching
Anselme and Cesarine, who were sauntering across the grassy slope
without perceiving them, thinking probably that they were still
following.
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum: hard getting enough to eat, at times, and when I found a bunch of
clover I had to listen and look for danger while I ate it. Wolves
prowled around the hole in which I lived and sometimes I didn't dare
stir out for days at a time. Oh, how happy and contented I was then!
I was a real rabbit, as nature made me--wild and free!--and I even
enjoyed listening to the startled throbbing of my own heart!"
"I've often thought," said Dorothy, who was busily eating, "that it
would be fun to be a rabbit."
"It IS fun--when you're the genuine article," agreed his Majesty.
"But look at me now! I live in a marble palace instead of a hole in
the ground. I have all I want to eat, without the joy of hunting for
The Emerald City of Oz |
