| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: tearful, and their words were all of sorrow. They spoke of a
daughter, a wanderer they knew not where, bearing dishonor along
with her, and leaving shame and affliction to bring their gray
heads to the grave. They alluded also to other and more recent
woe, but in the midst of their talk their voices seemed to melt
into the sound of the wind sweeping mournfully among the autumn
leaves; and when the lady lifted her eyes, there was she kneeling
in the hollow between three hills.
"A weary and lonesome time yonder old couple have of it,"
remarked the old woman, smiling in the lady's face.
"And did you also hear them?" exclaimed she, a sense of
Twice Told Tales |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Flower Fables by Louisa May Alcott: Joyfully Ripple gave her the chain; but, as soon as it touched her
hand, the jewels melted like snow, and fell in bright drops to the
ground; at this the Queen's eyes flashed, and the Spirits gathered
angrily about poor Ripple, who looked sadly at the broken chain,
and thought in vain what she could give, to win the thing she longed
so earnestly for.
"I have many fairer gems than these, in my home below the sea;
and I will bring all I can gather far and wide, if you will grant
my prayer, and give me what I seek," she said, turning gently to
the fiery Spirits, who were hovering fiercely round her.
"You must bring us each a jewel that will never vanish from our hands
Flower Fables |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: Stout apples borne, with chestnut-flower the beech,
The mountain-ash with pear-bloom whitened o'er,
And swine crunched acorns 'neath the boughs of elms.
Nor is the method of inserting eyes
And grafting one: for where the buds push forth
Amidst the bark, and burst the membranes thin,
Even on the knot a narrow rift is made,
Wherein from some strange tree a germ they pen,
And to the moist rind bid it cleave and grow.
Or, otherwise, in knotless trunks is hewn
A breach, and deep into the solid grain
Georgics |
