| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Old Indian Legends by Zitkala-Sa: the wooded ravine. She was strong and swung an ax as skillfully as
any man. Her loose buckskin dress was made for such freedom. Soon
carrying easily a bundle of long willows on her back, with a loop
of rope over both her shoulders, she came striding homeward.
Near the entrance way she stooped low, at once shifting the
bundle to the right and with both hands lifting the noose from over
her head. Having thus dropped the wood to the ground, she
disappeared into her teepee. In a moment she came running out
again, crying, "My son! My little son is gone!" Her keen eyes
swept east and west and all around her. There was nowhere any sign
of the child.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Book of Remarkable Criminals by H. B. Irving: revenged on the Moor. The thought of it he describes as
"gnawing his inwards." Emilia's conversation with Desdemona
in the last act lends some colour to the correctness of Iago's
belief. If this belief be well-founded it must greatly modify
his character as a purely wanton and mischievous criminal, a
supreme villain, and lower correspondingly the character of
Othello as an honourable and high-minded man. If it be a morbid
suspicion, having no ground in fact, a mental obsession, then
Iago becomes abnormal and consequently more or less irre-
sponsible. But this suggestion of Emilia's faithlessness made in
the early part of the play is never followed up by the dramatist,
A Book of Remarkable Criminals |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Herbert West: Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft: The
end of Herbert West began one evening in our joint study when
he was dividing his curious glance between the newspaper and me.
A strange headline item had struck at him from the crumpled pages,
and a nameless titan claw had seemed to reach down through sixteen
years. Something fearsome and incredible had happened at Sefton
Asylum fifty miles away, stunning the neighbourhood and baffling
the police. In the small hours of the morning a body of silent
men had entered the grounds, and their leader had aroused the
attendants. He was a menacing military figure who talked without
moving his lips and whose voice seemed almost ventriloquially
Herbert West: Reanimator |
