| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Enchanted Island of Yew by L. Frank Baum: The girls uttered cries of astonishment and delight, and the fairy said:
"You see, these transformations are not at all difficult. I must now
have a sword."
She plucked a twig from a near-by tree and cast it upon the ground at
her feet. Again she waved her wand--and the twig turned to a gleaming
sword, richly engraved, that seemed to the silent watchers to tremble
slightly in its sheath, as if its heart of steel throbbed with hopes
of battles to come.
"And now I must have shield and armor, said the fairy, gaily. "This
will make a shield,"--and she stripped a sheet of loose bark from a
tree-trunk,--"but for armor I must have something better. Will you
The Enchanted Island of Yew |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: service, and I yesterday saw the last of the hundred thalers which
I had brought with me from Dresden to Paris. I have left twenty-
five francs in the drawer of this table to pay the rent I owe to
the landlord.
"My parents being dead, my death will affect nobody. I desire that
my countrymen will not blame the French Government. I have never
registered myself as a refugee, and I have asked for nothing; I
have met none of my fellow-exiles; no one in Paris knows of my
existence.
"I am dying in Christian beliefs. May God forgive the last of the
Steinbocks!
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: live it, is only to be Moses on the mountain of Nebo, with the land at your
feet and no power to enter. It would be better not to see it. Come," she
said, looking up into his face, and seeing its uncomprehending expression,
"let us go, it is getting late. Doss is anxious for his breakfast also,"
she added, wheeling round and calling to the dog, who was endeavouring to
unearth a mole, an occupation to which he had been zealously addicted from
the third month, but in which he had never on any single occasion proved
successful.
Waldo shouldered his bag, and Lyndall walked on before in silence, with the
dog close to her side. Perhaps she thought of the narrowness of the limits
within which a human soul may speak and be understood by its nearest of
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