| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: To the deep woods; nor thou didst spurn his call.
But who for milk hath longing, must himself
Carry lucerne and lotus-leaves enow
With salt herbs to the cote, whence more they love
The streams, more stretch their udders, and give back
A subtle taste of saltness in the milk.
Many there be who from their mothers keep
The new-born kids, and straightway bind their mouths
With iron-tipped muzzles. What they milk at dawn,
Or in the daylight hours, at night they press;
What darkling or at sunset, this ere morn
Georgics |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton: from her seat with the factitious sense of lightness that comes
from imparting a long-hidden dread.
X
Mr. Hawkins proved himself worthy of his wife's faith in his
capacity. He learned from Ann Eliza as much as she could tell him
about Mrs. Hochmuller and returned the next evening with a scrap of
paper bearing her address, beneath which Johnny (the family scribe)
had written in a large round hand the names of the streets that led
there from the ferry.
Ann Eliza lay awake all that night, repeating over and over
again the directions Mr. Hawkins had given her. He was a kind man,
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: mission station high up the Tana, a river on the east coast, about three
hundred miles north of Zanzibar. In it he says that they have gone
through many hardships and adventures, but are alive and well, and have
found traces which go far towards making him hope that the results of
their wild quest may be a "magnificent and unexampled discovery." I
greatly fear, however, that all he has discovered is death; for this
letter came a long while ago, and nobody has heard a single word of the
party since. They have totally vanished.
It was on the last evening of my stay at his house that he told the
ensuing story to me and Captain Good, who was dining with him. He had
eaten his dinner and drunk two or three glasses of old port, just to
Long Odds |
