| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Dreams & Dust by Don Marquis: The reckless gesture, the strong pose,
Sharp battle-cry flung back to Earth,
And buoyant humor, as a god
Might say: "Lo, here my feet have trod!"--
There lies the meaning and the worth!
They bring no golden treasure home,
They win no acres for their clan,
Nor dream nor deed of theirs shall mend
The ills of man's bedeviled span--
Nor are they skilled in sleights of speech,
(Nor overeager) to make plain
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen: serenity and satisfaction, and Julia well knew that on
this ground Maria could not be happy but at her expense.
With hasty indignation, therefore, and a tremulous voice,
she said to him, "You do not seem afraid of not
keeping your countenance when I come in with a basket
of provisions--though one might have supposed--but it
is only as Agatha that I was to be so overpowering!"
She stopped--Henry Crawford looked rather foolish,
and as if he did not know what to say. Tom Bertram
began again--
"Miss Crawford must be Amelia. She will be an excellent Amelia."
Mansfield Park |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: business that ever --"
"Dear lord, I begged him on my knees to confess,
but --"
"You DID! It gets thicker and thicker. What did
you want him to do that for?"
"Sith it would bring him a quick death and save
him all this cruel pain."
"Well -- yes, there is reason in that. But HE didn't
want the quick death."
"He? Why, of a surety he DID."
"Well, then, why in the world DIDN'T he confess?"
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
