| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas: as accurately as did the owner himself every progressive
development of the flower, from the moment when, in the
first year, its pale seed-leaf begins to peep from the
ground, to that glorious one, when, after five years, its
petals at last reveal the hidden treasures of its chalice.
How often had the miserable, jealous man to observe in Van
Baerle's beds tulips which dazzled him by their beauty, and
almost choked him by their perfection!
And then, after the first blush of the admiration which he
could not help feeling, he began to be tortured by the pangs
of envy, by that slow fever which creeps over the heart and
The Black Tulip |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: the burg of Priam for nine years fought, and in the tenth
year sacked the city and departed homeward. Yet on the way
they sinned against Athene, and she raised upon them an
evil blast and long waves of the sea. Then all the rest of
his good company was lost, but it came to pass that the
wind bare and the wave brought him hither. And now Zeus
biddeth thee send him hence with what speed thou mayest,
for it is not ordained that he die away from his friends,
but rather it is his fate to look on them even yet, and to
come to his high-roofed home and his own country.'
So spake he, and Calypso, that fair goddess, shuddered and
The Odyssey |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: Yet more striking is another incident of the very year when I was
there myself, 1888. In the spring, a man and woman skulked about
the school-house in Hiva-oa till they found a particular child
alone. Him they approached with honeyed words and carneying
manners - 'You are So-and-so, son of So-and-so?' they asked; and
caressed and beguiled him deeper in the woods. Some instinct woke
in the child's bosom, or some look betrayed the horrid purpose of
his deceivers. He sought to break from them; he screamed; and
they, casting off the mask, seized him the more strongly and began
to run. His cries were heard; his schoolmates, playing not far
off, came running to the rescue; and the sinister couple fled and
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