| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: It was the very witching time of night that Ichabod, heavy
hearted and crest-fallen, pursued his travels homewards, along
the sides of the lofty hills which rise above Tarry Town, and
which he had traversed so cheerily in the afternoon. The hour was
as dismal as himself. Far below him the Tappan Zee spread its
dusky and indistinct waste of waters, with here and there the
tall mast of a sloop, riding quietly at anchor under the land. In
the dead hush of midnight, he could even hear the barking of the
watchdog from the opposite shore of the Hudson; but it was so
vague and faint as only to give an idea of his distance from this
faithful companion of man. Now and then, too, the long-drawn
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy: And it's the same here,' and he gave a broad smile. 'I'm
ready!' he added.
'If you're ready, let's go,' said Vasili Andreevich. 'And as
to separating, don't you allow it, Grandfather. You got
everything together and you're the master. Go to the Justice
of the Peace. He'll say how things should be done.'
'He carries on so, carries on so,' the old man continued in a
whining tone. 'There's no doing anything with him. It's as if
the devil possessed him.'
Nikita having meanwhile finished his fifth tumbler of tea laid
it on its side instead of turning it upside down, hoping to be
Master and Man |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: in his native valley, and was now a man of middle age. By
imperceptible degrees, he had become known among the people. Now,
as heretofore, he labored for his bread, and was the same
simple-hearted man that he had always been. But he had thought
and felt so much, he had given so many of the best hours of his
life to unworldly hopes for some great good to mankind, that it
seemed as though he had been talking with the angels, and had
imbibed a portion of their wisdom unawares. It was visible in the
calm and well-considered beneficence of his daily life, the quiet
stream of which had made a wide green margin all along its
course. Not a day passed by, that the world was not the better
The Snow Image |
