| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: And to go up by night we are not able;
Therefore 'tis well to think of some fair sojourn.
Souls are there on the right hand here withdrawn;
If thou permit me I will lead thee to them,
And thou shalt know them not without delight."
"How is this?" was the answer; "should one wish
To mount by night would he prevented be
By others? or mayhap would not have power?"
And on the ground the good Sordello drew
His finger, saying, "See, this line alone
Thou couldst not pass after the sun is gone;
The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mountains by Stewart Edward White: and hurled lavishly into space. The very breath of
our bodies seemed driven back, so that as we faced
the elements, we breathed in gasps, with difficulty.
Then we dropped down into our blankets.
At once the prostrate tree-trunk gave us its
protection. We lay in a little back-wash of the racing
winds, still as a night in June. Over us roared the
battle. We felt like sharpshooters in the trenches;
as though, were we to raise our heads, at that instant
we should enter a zone of danger. So we lay quietly
on our backs and stared at the heavens.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Professor by Charlotte Bronte: --but half a step farther, and you would plunge headlong into the
gulf of imbecility; there lodged, you would speedily receive
proofs of Flemish gratitude and magnanimity in showers of Brabant
saliva and handfuls of Low Country mud. You might smooth to the
utmost the path of learning, remove every pebble from the track;
but then you must finally insist with decision on the pupil
taking your arm and allowing himself to be led quietly along the
prepared road. When I had brought down my lesson to the lowest
level of my dullest pupil's capacity--when I had shown myself the
mildest, the most tolerant of masters--a word of impertinence, a
movement of disobedience, changed me at once into a despot. I
The Professor |
