| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: And more convinced life yields no satisfaction'?
Or 'seek too hard, the sight at length grows callous,
And beauty shines in vain'?--
These things you ask for,
These you shall have. . . So, talking with my first wife,
At the dark end of evening, when she leaned
And smiled at me, with blue eyes weaving webs
Of finest fire, revolving me in scarlet,--
Calling to mind remote and small successions
Of countless other evenings ending so,--
I smiled, and met her kiss, and wished her dead;
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling:
"Now, we can watch our fathers,
Sullen and bowed and old,
Stooping over the millet,
Sharing the silly mould,
"Driving a foolish furrow,
Mending a muddy yoke,
Sleeping in mud-walled prisons,
Steeping their food in smoke.
Verses 1889-1896 |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Schoolmistress and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov: so-and-so. . . . Her voice is beneath all criticism, but she has
a most perfect mastery of it! . . .'
" 'Can you tell me,' I asked the unprepossessing individual, 'who
built this bridge?'
" 'I really don't know,' answered the individual; some engineer,
I expect.'
" 'And who built the cathedral in your town?' I asked again.
" 'I really can't tell you.'
"Then I asked him who was considered the best teacher in K., who
the best architect, and to all my questions the unprepossessing
individual answered that he did not know.
The Schoolmistress and Other Stories |
