| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Flower Fables by Louisa May Alcott: and bitter pain when I have done no wrong? Uncared for and forgotten,
I must stay here among these poor things who think only of themselves.
Come here, Rose-Leaf, and bind up my wounds, for I am far more useful
than idle bird or fly."
Then said the Fairy, while she bathed the broken wing,--
"Love-Blossom, you should not murmur. We may find happiness in
seeking to be patient even while we suffer. You are not forgotten or
uncared for, but others need our care more than you, and to those
who take cheerfully the pain and sorrow sent, do we most gladly give
our help. You need not be idle, even though lying here in darkness
and sorrow; you can be taking from your heart all sad and discontented
Flower Fables |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from McTeague by Frank Norris: lay back in his operating chair at the bay window, reading
the paper, drinking his beer, and smoking his huge porcelain
pipe while his food digested; crop-full, stupid, and warm.
By and by, gorged with steam beer, and overcome by the heat
of the room, the cheap tobacco, and the effects of his heavy
meal, he dropped off to sleep. Late in the afternoon his
canary bird, in its gilt cage just over his head, began to
sing. He woke slowly, finished the rest of his beer--very
flat and stale by this time--and taking down his concertina
from the bookcase, where in week days it kept the company of
seven volumes of "Allen's Practical Dentist," played upon it
McTeague |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Rivers to the Sea by Sara Teasdale: But I shall kneel before you, oh my king,
And bind my brow forever with a thorn.
TO A CASTILIAN SONG
WE held the book together timidly,
Whose antique music in an alien tongue
Once rose among the dew-drenched vines that hung
Beneath a high Castilian balcony.
I felt the lute strings' ancient ecstasy,
And while he read, my love-filled heart was stung,
And throbbed, as where an ardent bird has clung
The branches tremble on a blossomed tree.
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