| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: something else. Many symbols are mere "survivals" -- things which
having no longer any utility continue to exist because we have
inherited the tendency to make them; as funereal urns carved on
memorial monuments. They were once real urns holding the ashes of the
dead. We cannot stop making them, but we can give them a name that
conceals our helplessness.
SYMBOLIC, adj. Pertaining to symbols and the use and interpretation
of symbols.
They say 'tis conscience feels compunction;
I hold that that's the stomach's function,
For of the sinner I have noted
The Devil's Dictionary |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Droll Stories, V. 1 by Honore de Balzac: having knocked at the door, replied to question put to him through the
little grill, that he was a messenger on state secrets, and was
admitted to the draper's house. Now coming straight to the fact, he
made the happy jeweller get up from his table, led him to a corner,
and said to him: "If one of your neighbours had planted a horn on your
forehead and he was delivered to you, bound hand and foot, would you
throw him into the river?"
"Rather," said the jeweller, "but if you are mocking me I'll give you
a good drubbing."
"There, there!" replied Chiquon, "I am one of your friends and come to
warn you that as many times as you have conversed with the draper's
Droll Stories, V. 1 |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from When a Man Marries by Mary Roberts Rinehart: fire.
"Wait a minute, Bella," I said. "You see, something queer has
happened. You know this is the anniversary--well, you know what
it is--and Jim was awfully glum. So we thought we would come--"
"What are you driving at?" she demanded. "You are sea-green, Kit.
What's the matter? You needn't think I mind because Jim has a
jollification to celebrate his divorce."
"It--it was Takahiro--in the ambulance," I blurted. "Smallpox.
We--Bella, we are shut in, quarantined."
She didn't faint. She just sat down and stared at me, and I
stared back at her. Then a miserable alarm clock on the table
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