| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln: we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead,
who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power
to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember,
what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished
work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining
before us. . .that from these honored dead we take increased devotion
to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. . .
that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. . .
that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. . .
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll: there was the arrow, right in the centre of the bull's-eye!
"The lake is close by," continued the Vice-warden. "Bring his Highness'
fishing-rod!" And Uggug most unwillingly held the rod, and dangled the
fly over the water.
"A beetle on your arm!" cried my Lady, pinching the poor Baron's arm
worse than if ten lobsters had seized it at once.
"That kind is poisonous," she explained. "But what a pity!
You missed seeing the fish pulled out!"
An enormous dead cod-fish was lying on the bank, with the hook in its
mouth.
"I had always fancied," the Baron faltered, "that cod were salt-water
Sylvie and Bruno |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: have only to find it.
OLYMPIAN, adj. Relating to a mountain in Thessaly, once inhabited by
gods, now a repository of yellowing newspapers, beer bottles and
mutilated sardine cans, attesting the presence of the tourist and his
appetite.
His name the smirking tourist scrawls
Upon Minerva's temple walls,
Where thundered once Olympian Zeus,
And marks his appetite's abuse.
Averil Joop
OMEN, n. A sign that something will happen if nothing happens.
The Devil's Dictionary |
