| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: Throbbed with the fitful pulse of amorous blood,
And the wild winds of passion shook my slim stem's maidenhood.
The trooping fawns at evening came and laid
Their cool black noses on my lowest boughs,
And on my topmost branch the blackbird made
A little nest of grasses for his spouse,
And now and then a twittering wren would light
On a thin twig which hardly bare the weight of such delight.
I was the Attic shepherd's trysting place,
Beneath my shadow Amaryllis lay,
And round my trunk would laughing Daphnis chase
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: mere wreath.
[3] Cf. Pindar passim.
Clearly an effeminate and cowardly fellow (he answered).
Soc. And what if another man, who had it in him, by devotion to
affairs of state, to exalt his city and win honour himself thereby,
were to shrink and hesitate and hang back--would he too not reasonably
be regarded as a coward?
Possibly (he answered); but why do you address these questions to me?
Because (replied Socrates) I think that you, who have this power, do
hesitate to devote yourself to matters which, as being a citizen, if
for no other reason, you are bound to take part in.[4]
The Memorabilia |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: she murmured, sticking her needles into the stocking. And she opened
the book and began reading here and there at random, and as she did so,
she felt that she was climbing backwards, upwards, shoving her way up
under petals that curved over her, so that she only knew this is white,
or this is red. She did not know at first what the words meant at all.
Steer, hither steer your winged pines, all beaten Mariners
she read and turned the page, swinging herself, zigzagging this way and
that, from one line to another as from one branch to another, from one
red and white flower to another, until a little sound roused her--her
husband slapping his thighs. Their eyes met for a second; but they did
not want to speak to each other. They had nothing to say, but
To the Lighthouse |
