| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Heart of the West by O. Henry: like the tongue of a wagon. He caught something harder than a blanket
and pulled out a fearful thing--a shapeless, muddy bunch of leather
tied together with wire and twine. From its ragged end, like the head
and claws of a disturbed turtle, protruded human toes.
"Who-ee!" yelled Long Collins. "Ranse, are you a-packin' around of
corpuses? Here's a--howlin' grasshoppers!"
Up from his long slumber popped Curly, like some vile worm from its
burrow. He clawed his way out and sat blinking like a disreputable,
drunken owl. His face was as bluish-red and puffed and seamed and
cross-lined as the cheapest round steak of the butcher. His eyes were
swollen slits; his nose a pickled beet; his hair would have made the
Heart of the West |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: me; for me there is no robber, for me no earthquake; all things
are full of peace, full of tranquillity; neither highway nor city
nor gathering of men, neither neighbor nor comrade can do me
hurt. Another supplies my food, whose care it is; another my
raiment; another hath given me perceptions of sense and primary
conceptions. And when He supplies my necessities no more, it is
that He is sounding the retreat, that He hath opened the door,
and is saying to thee, Come!--Wither? To nought that thou needest
fear, but to the friendly kindred elements whence thou didst
spring. Whatsoever of fire is in thee, unto fire shall return;
whatsoever of earth, unto earth; of spirit, unto spirit; of
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll: sudden thought made me stoop down and examine the leaves.
Then a little thrill of delight ran through me --for I noticed that the
holes were all arranged so as to form letters; there were three leaves
side by side, with "B," "R," and "U" marked on them, and after some
search I found two more, which contained an "N" and an "O."
And then, all in a moment, a flash of inner light seemed to illumine a
part of my life that had all but faded into oblivion--the strange
visions I had experienced during my journey to Elveston: and with a
thrill of delight I thought "Those visions are destined to be linked
with my waking life!"
By this time the 'eerie' feeling had come back again, and I suddenly
Sylvie and Bruno |
