| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott: situated in the nook formed by the eddying sweep of a stream,
which issued from the adjoining hills. A rude cavern in an
adjacent rock, which, in the interior, was cut into the shape of
a cross, formed the hermitage, where some Saxon saint had in
ancient times done penance, and given name to the place. The
rich Abbey of Coldinghame had, in latter days, established a
chapel in the neighbourhood, of which no vestige was now visible,
though the churchyard which surrounded it was still, as upon the
present occasion, used for the interment of particular persons.
One or two shattered yew-trees still grew within the precincts of
that which had once been holy ground. Warriors and barons had
The Bride of Lammermoor |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: horse galloping across the plain.
It was transient. His brow clouded again, he had, it would seem, a
vision of his fate. Halting doubt had followed close on the heels of
white-winged hope.
We left him to himself.
"Now, then," said I to the Doctor, "we have given our word; how are we
to keep it?"
"We will sleep upon it," said Juste, "and to-morrow morning we will
talk it over."
Next morning we went for a walk in the Luxembourg.
We had had time to think over the incident of the past night, and were
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: because the wise and the learned, who can only know whether there
be any truth in this science, do all unanimously agree to laugh
at and despise it; and none but the poor ignorant vulgar give it
any credit, and that only upon the word of such silly wretches as
I and my fellows, who can hardly write or read. I then asked him
why he had not calculated his own nativity, to see whether it
agreed with Bickerstaff's prediction? at which he shook his head,
and said, Oh! sir, this is no time for jesting, but for repenting
those fooleries, as I do now from the very bottom of my heart. By
what I can gather from you, said I, the observations and
predictions you printed, with your almanacks, were mere
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