| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Flame and Shadow by Sara Teasdale: Even the thoughts in my mind.
I put my head on my hands before me,
There is nothing left to be done or said,
There is nothing to hope for, I am tired,
And heavy as the dead.
Bells
At six o'clock of an autumn dusk
With the sky in the west a rusty red,
The bells of the mission down in the valley
Cry out that the day is dead.
The first star pricks as sharp as steel --
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Confidence by Henry James: He felt amused and exhilarated, but the feeling amounted
almost to agitation. He, nevertheless, returned to
the tables, where he again found success awaiting him.
Again and again he put his money on a happy number, and so
steady a run of luck began at last to attract attention.
The rumor of it spread through the rooms, and the crowd
about the roulette received a large contingent of spectators.
Bernard felt that they were looking more or less eagerly for a turn
of the tide; but he was in the humor for disappointing them,
and he left the place, while his luck was still running high,
with ten thousand francs in his pocket. It was very late
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: off with me after a short but effusive passage of
leave-taking with R.
The favour of the great throws an aureole round
the fortunate object of its selection. That ex-
cellent man enquired whether he could do anything
for me. He had known me only by sight, and he
was well aware he would never see me again; I was,
in common with the other seamen of the port,
merely a subject for official writing, filling up of
forms with all the artificial superiority of a man of
pen and ink to the men who grapple with realities
The Shadow Line |
