| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: motion. But when the mother asked whether her poor lost child
had stopped to drink out of the fountain, the naiad, with
weeping eyes (for these water-nymphs had tears to spare for
everybody's grief, would answer "No!" in a murmuring voice,
which was just like the murmur of the stream.
Often, likewise, she encountered fauns, who looked like
sunburnt country people, except that they had hairy ears, and
little horns upon their foreheads, and the hinder legs of
goats, on which they gamboled merrily about the woods and
fields. They were a frolicsome kind of creature but grew as sad
as their cheerful dispositions would allow, when Ceres inquired
Tanglewood Tales |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Flame and Shadow by Sara Teasdale: Surer than the spring,
Stronger than the sea;
Hidden out of sight
Like a miser's gold
In forsaken fields
Where the wind is cold.
The Storm
I thought of you when I was wakened
By a wind that made me glad and afraid
Of the rushing, pouring sound of the sea
That the great trees made.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Apology by Xenophon: yet in spite of all, Meletus, you will have it that by such habits I
corrupt the young. We know, I fancy, what such corrupting influences
are; and perhaps you will tell us if you know of any one who, under my
influence, has been changed from a religous into an irreligious man;
who, from being sober-minded, has become prodigal; from being a
moderate drinker has become a wine-bibber and a drunkard; from being a
lover of healthy honest toil has become effeminate, or under the
thrall of some other wicked pleasure."
[28] Lit. "whom do you know," and so throughout.
[29] Cf. Plat. "Phaed." 66 C.
[30] Or, "so attempered and adjusted." The phrase savours of "cynic."
The Apology |
