| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Heroes by Charles Kingsley: thousands of the Colchians and the fearful chance of war.
But Chalciope, Phrixus' widow, went weeping to the town; for
she remembered her Minuan husband, and all the pleasures of
her youth, while she watched the fair faces of his kinsmen,
and their long locks of golden hair. And she whispered to
Medeia her sister, 'Why should all these brave men die? why
does not my father give them up the fleece, that my husband's
spirit may have rest?'
And Medeia's heart pitied the heroes, and Jason most of all;
and she answered, 'Our father is stern and terrible, and who
can win the golden fleece?' But Chalciope said, 'These men
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Chouans by Honore de Balzac: chin just raised, those eyes of fire; I hear the 'Hue!' of the
postilion; I dream, I dream,--why then such hatred on awakening!"
She drew a long sigh, rose, and then for the first time looked out
upon the country delivered over to civil war by the cruel leader whom
she was plotting to destroy. Attracted by the scene she wandered out
to breathe at her ease beneath the sky; and though her steps conducted
her at a venture, she was surely led to the Promenade of the town by
one of those occult impulses of the soul which lead us to follow hope
irrationally. Thoughts conceived under the dominion of that spell are
often realized; but we then attribute their pre-vision to a power we
call presentiment,--an inexplicable power, but a real one,--which our
The Chouans |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: melting iron with his pole, dully thinking only how many rails
the lump would yield. It was late,--nearly Sunday morning;
another hour, and the heavy work would be done, only the
furnaces to replenish and cover for the next day. The workmen
were growing more noisy, shouting, as they had to do, to be
heard over the deep clamor of the mills. Suddenly they grew
less boisterous,--at the far end, entirely silent. Something
unusual had happened. After a moment, the silence came nearer;
the men stopped their jeers and drunken choruses. Deborah,
stupidly lifting up her head, saw the cause of the quiet. A
group of five or six men were slowly approaching, stopping to
Life in the Iron-Mills |
