| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: headless! but his horror was still more increased on observing
that the head, which should have rested on his shoulders, was
carried before him on the pommel of his saddle! His terror rose
to desperation; he rained a shower of kicks and blows upon
Gunpowder, hoping by a sudden movement to give his companion the
slip; but the spectre started full jump with him. Away, then,
they dashed through thick and thin; stones flying and sparks
flashing at every bound. Ichabod's flimsy garments fluttered in
the air, as he stretched his long lank body away over his horse's
head, in the eagerness of his flight.
They had now reached the road which turns off to Sleepy
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Merry Men by Robert Louis Stevenson: into the plain; night after night; until the dream, which had
seemed all jollity to him at first, began to take on a colour of
gravity, and the nocturnal summons and waiting equipage occupied a
place in his mind as something to be both feared and hoped for.
One day, when Will was about sixteen, a fat young man arrived at
sunset to pass the night. He was a contented-looking fellow, with
a jolly eye, and carried a knapsack. While dinner was preparing,
he sat in the arbour to read a book; but as soon as he had begun to
observe Will, the book was laid aside; he was plainly one of those
who prefer living people to people made of ink and paper. Will, on
his part, although he had not been much interested in the stranger
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: At this moment a voice, which he fancied was that of a siren rising
from the sea, a woman's voice, repeated the air he had sung, but with
all the hesitations of a person to whom music is revealed for the
first time. He recognized the stammering of a heart born into the
poesy of harmony. Etienne, to whom long study of his own voice had
taught the language of sounds, in which the soul finds resources
greater than speech to express its thoughts, could divine the timid
amazement that attended these attempts. With what religious and
subtile admiration had that unknown being listened to him! The
stillness of the atmosphere enabled him to hear every sound, and he
quivered at the distant rustle of the folds of a gown. He was amazed,
|
