| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: stipulates that no one is to interfere with his arrangements- leads
his division to the decisive point, and gains the victory alone.
"But death and suffering?" suggested another voice. Prince Andrew,
however, did not answer that voice and went on dreaming of his
triumphs. The dispositions for the next battle are planned by him
alone. Nominally he is only an adjutant on Kutuzov's staff, but he
does everything alone. The next battle is won by him alone. Kutuzov is
removed and he is appointed... "Well and then?" asked the other voice.
"If before that you are not ten times wounded, killed, or betrayed,
well... what then?..." "Well then," Prince Andrew answered himself, "I
don't know what will happen and don't want to know, and can't, but
War and Peace |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: seventh visit, "that you were only melancholy; but I see," sinking his
voice to a whisper, "that your soul is in despair. That feeling is
neither Christian nor Catholic."
"But," she replied, looking to heaven with piercing eyes and letting a
bitter smile flicker on her lips, "what other feeling does the Church
leave to a lost soul unless it be despair?"
As he heard these words the rector realized the vast extent of the
ravages in her soul.
"Ah!" he said, "you are making this terrace your hell, when it ought
to be your Calvary from which to rise to heaven."
"I have no pride left to place me on such a pedestal," she answered,
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson: To sevenfold heat, --
As on a day when three in Dura shared
The furnace, and were spared
For glory by that king of Babylon
Who made himself so great that God, who heard,
Covered him with long feathers, like a bird.
Again, he may have gone down easily,
By comfortable altitudes, and found,
As always, underneath him solid ground
Whereon to be sufficient and to stand
Possessed already of the promised land,
|
