| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: and topazes, to which she had helped herself out of the king's
strong box. All these came pelting down, like a shower of many-
colored hailstones, upon the heads of grown people and
children, who forthwith gathered them up, and carried them back
to the palace. But King Aegeus told them that they were welcome
to the whole, and to twice as many more, if he had them, for
the sake of his delight at finding his son, and losing the
wicked Medea. And, indeed, if you had seen how hateful was her
last look, as the flaming chariot flew upward, you would not
have wondered that both king and people should think her
departure a good riddance.
 Tanglewood Tales |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Whirligigs by O. Henry: ing about springtime and flowers in the middle of winter!
When Higgins comes back, tell him to bring me a hot rum
punch. And now get out!"
But who shall shame the bright face of May? Rogue
though she be and disturber of sane men's peace, no wise
virgins cunning nor cold storage shall make her bow her
head in the bright galaxy of months.
Oh, yes, the story was not quite finished.
A night passed, and Higgins helped old man Coulson
in the morning to his chair by the window. The cold of
the room was gone. Heavenly odours and fragrant mild-
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: Thy question shows me thy belief to be
That I was niggard in the other life,
It may be from the circle where I was;
Therefore know thou, that avarice was removed
Too far from me; and this extravagance
Thousands of lunar periods have punished.
And were it not that I my thoughts uplifted,
When I the passage heard where thou exclaimest,
As if indignant, unto human nature,
'To what impellest thou not, O cursed hunger
Of gold, the appetite of mortal men?'
 The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |