| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: severe discretion of doors as impenetrable to the truth within as the
granite of tombstones. A lock snapped--a short chain rattled. Nobody
shall know!
Why was this assurance of safety heavier than a burden of fear, and
why the day that began presented itself obstinately like the last day
of all--like a to-day without a to-morrow? Yet nothing was changed,
for nobody would know; and all would go on as before--the getting,
the enjoying, the blessing of hunger that is appeased every day; the
noble incentives of unappeasable ambitions. All--all the blessings
of life. All--but the certitude immaterial and precious--the certitude
of love and faith. He believed the shadow of it had been with him as
Tales of Unrest |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young: a row of big round red apples at the top.
But Bessie Bell did not think of or remember that then; she just
leaned up against the lady and swung one of her little feet up and
down, back and forth, as she sat on the stone bench: she was so
happy to have met the Wisest Woman in the world.
The people who passed by looked, and turned to look again, at the
little girl in the stiff-starched, faded blue checked apron leaning
up against the lady in the crisp, dull silk.
But Bessie Bell did not look at anybody who passed.
And the lady did not look at anybody who passed.
And the band kept on playing gay music.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: as an electric burn; and the mere hum of it has a lancinating quality of
tone which foretells the quality of the pain about to come,-- much in the
same way that a particular smell suggests a particular taste. I find that
this mosquito much resembles the creature which Dr. Howard calls Stegomyia
fasciata, or Culex fasciatus: and that its habits are the same as those of
the Stegomyia. For example, it is diurnal rather than nocturnal and becomes
most troublesome in the afternoon. And I have discovered that it comes from
the Buddhist cemetery,-- a very old cemetery,-- in the rear of my garden.
Dr. Howard's book declares that, in order to rid a neighborhood of
mosquitoes, it is only necessary to pour a little petroleum, or kerosene
oil, into the stagnant water where they breed. Once a week the oil should
Kwaidan |
