| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: Lay in the offing by south where the towns of the Tevas are,
And cast overboard of their plenty; and lo! at the Tevas feet
The surf on all of the beaches tumbled treasures of meat.
In the salt of the sea, a harvest tossed with the refluent foam;
And the children gleaned it in playing, and ate and carried it home;
And the elders stared and debated, and wondered and passed the jest,
But whenever a guest came by eagerly questioned the guest;
And little by little, from one to another, the word went round:
"In all the borders of Paea the victual rots on the ground,
And swine are plenty as rats. And now, when they fare to the sea,
The men of the Namunu-ura glean from under the tree
Ballads |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Iliad by Homer: a hundred-oared galley would not hold them. The tongue can run
all whithers and talk all wise; it can go here and there, and as
a man says, so shall he be gainsaid. What is the use of our
bandying hard like women who when they fall foul of one another
go out and wrangle in the streets, one half true and the other
lies, as rage inspires them? No words of yours shall turn me now
that I am fain to fight--therefore let us make trial of one
another with our spears."
As he spoke he drove his spear at the great and terrible shield
of Achilles, which rang out as the point struck it. The son of
Peleus held the shield before him with his strong hand, and he
The Iliad |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Faith of Men by Jack London: around the tail of an island. Forty Mile spread itself suddenly
before them. Both men straightened their backs and gazed at the
sight. They gazed long and carefully, drifting with the current,
in their faces an expression of mingled surprise and consternation
slowly gathering. Not a thread of smoke was rising from the
hundreds of log-cabins. There was no sound of axes biting sharply
into wood, of hammering and sawing. Neither dogs nor men loitered
before the big store. No steamboats lay at the bank, no canoes,
nor scows, nor poling-boats. The river was as bare of craft as the
town was of life.
"Kind of looks like Gabriel's tooted his little horn, and you an'
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