| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: with giants and dragons, they represent under this image our struggles
with the delusions of our passions. You have exalted me, an unhappy girl,
to the skies; you have called me a saint, and portrayed in your
imagination an angel in human form. Let her remain such to you,
let her continue to be as you have supposed, and be assured that she
will consider a share in your esteem as her highest treasure.
Think not that I would allure you from the path in which your
conscience leads you; for you know I respect the conscience of others,
as I would die for my own. Elfonzo, if I am worthy of thy love,
let such conversation never again pass between us. Go, seek a nobler
theme! we will seek it in the stream of time as the sun set in
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Sir John Mandeville: without the city, long time before. And he would have changed the
name of Jerusalem, and have clept it Aelia; but that name lasted
not long.
Also, ye shall understand, that the Saracens do much reverence to
that temple, and they say, that that place is right holy. And when
they go in they go bare-foot, and kneel many times. And when my
fellows and I saw that, when we came in we did off our shoes and
came in bare-foot, and thought that we should do as much worship
and reverence thereto, as any of the misbelieving men should, and
as great compunction in heart to have.
This temple is sixty-four cubits of wideness, and as many in
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: enough, with a prodigious bed, almost big enough indeed for any four
harpooneers to sleep abreast.
"There," said the landlord, placing the candle on a crazy old sea
chest that did double duty as a wash-stand and centre table; "there,
make yourself comfortable now, and good night to ye." I turned
round from eyeing the bed, but he had disappeared.
Folding back the counterpane, I stooped over the bed. Though none of
the most elegant, it yet stood the scrutiny tolerably well. I then
glanced round the room; and besides the bedstead and centre table,
could see no other furniture belonging to the place, but a rude
shelf, the four walls, and a papered fireboard representing a man
Moby Dick |
