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: We turned our backs upon the wretched valley,
Upon the bank that girds it round about,
Going across it without any speech.
There it was less than night, and less than day,
So that my sight went little in advance;
But I could hear the blare of a loud horn,
So loud it would have made each thunder faint,
Which, counter to it following its way,
Mine eyes directed wholly to one place.
After the dolorous discomfiture
When Charlemagne the holy emprise lost,
 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 Bucky O'Connor by William MacLeod Raine: anticipation," returned O'Halloran blithely.
"I think we'll not travel with you in public till after the
election, Mr. O'Halloran," reflected Bucky aloud.
"'Twould be just as well, me son. My friends won't be overpopular
with Megales if the cards fall his way."
"If you win, I suppose we may count Henderson as good as a free
man?"
"It would be a pity if me pull wouldn't do a little thing like
that," scoffed the conspirator genially.
"But, win or lose, I may be able to help you. We need musicians
to play those pianos we're bringing in. Well, the most dependable
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: known well enough that if the old ladies found any blemish on that
occasion, it was my being there! To them I must remain forever a
"Yankee," a wall perfectly imaginary and perfectly real between us; and
the fact that young John could take any other view of me, was to them a
sign of that "radical" tendency in him which they were able to forgive
solely because he was of the younger generation and didn't know any
better.
And with these thoughts in my mind, and remembering a certain very grave
talk I had once held with Eliza in the Exchange about the North and the
South, in which it was my good fortune to make her see that there is on
our soil nowadays such a being as an American, who feels, wherever he
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