| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: And wattled a basket well, and chose a fish from the boat;
And Tamatea the pliable shouldered the basket and went,
And travelled, and sang as he travelled, a lad that was well content.
Still the way of his going was round by the roaring coast,
Where the ring of the reef is broke and the trades run riot the most.
On his left, with smoke as of battle, the billows battered the land;
Unscalable, turreted mountains rose on the inner hand.
And cape, and village, and river, and vale, and mountain above,
Each had a name in the land for men to remember and love;
And never the name of a place, but lo! a song in its praise:
Ancient and unforgotten, songs of the earlier days,
Ballads |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: this world, you will never be missed by it. What, then, is the
dominating impulse in this country without morals, without faith,
without any sentiment, wherein, however, every sentiment, belief, and
moral has its origin and end? It is gold and pleasure. Take those two
words for a lantern, and explore that great stucco cage, that hive
with its black gutters, and follow the windings of that thought which
agitates, sustains, and occupies it! Consider! And, in the first
place, examine the world which possesses nothing.
The artisan, the man of the proletariat, who uses his hands, his
tongue, his back, his right arm, his five fingers, to live--well, this
very man, who should be the first to economize his vital principle,
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: depression, such as this, she would try to find some sort of clue to
the muddle which their old letters presented; some reason which seemed
to make it worth while to them; some aim which they kept steadily in
view--but she was interrupted.
Mrs. Hilbery had risen from her table, and was standing looking out of
the window at a string of barges swimming up the river.
Katharine watched her. Suddenly Mrs. Hilbery turned abruptly, and
exclaimed:
"I really believe I'm bewitched! I only want three sentences, you see,
something quite straightforward and commonplace, and I can't find
'em."
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