| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: opposite of all she says."
And Ulysses answered, "In good truth, goddess, it seems I should
have come to much the same bad end in my own house as Agamemnon
did, if you had not given me such timely information. Advise me
how I shall best avenge myself. Stand by my side and put your
courage into my heart as on the day when we loosed Troy's fair
diadem from her brow. Help me now as you did then, and I will
fight three hundred men, if you, goddess, will be with me."
"Trust me for that," said she, "I will not lose sight of you
when once we set about it, and I imagine that some of those who
are devouring your substance will then bespatter the pavement
The Odyssey |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: companies, every sort of enterprise that pays a dividend, has been
carried on for twenty years in England, commercially the first country
in the world. Nothing passes unchallenged there; the Houses of
Parliament hatch some twelve hundred laws every session, yet no member
of Parliament has ever yet raised an objection to the system----"
"A cure for plethora of the strong box. Purely vegetable remedy," put
in Bixiou, "les carottes" (gambling speculation).
"Look here!" cried Couture, firing up at this. "You have ten thousand
francs. You invest it in ten shares of a thousand francs each in ten
different enterprises. You are swindled nine times out of the ten--as
a matter of fact you are not, the public is a match for anybody, but
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: naturally through the half-fierce, half-lazy work of the bracing days.
He knew women early, and since they spoiled him he became contemptuous
of them, of young virgins because they were ignorant, of the others
because they were hysterical about things which in his overwhelming
self-absorbtion he took for granted.
But his heart was in a constant, turbulent riot. The most grotesque
and fantastic conceits haunted him in his bed at night. A universe
of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out in his brain while the
clock ticked on the wash-stand and the moon soaked with wet
light his tangled clothes upon the floor. Each night he added to the
pattern of his fancies until drowsiness closed down upon some vivid
The Great Gatsby |
