| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: another "skee," which was only two feet long, turned swiftly where he
stood, caught his timid companion in his arms, lifted her in spite of
the long boards on her feet, and placed her on a projecting rock from
which he brushed the snow with his pelisse.
"You are safe there, Minna; you can tremble at your ease."
"We are a third of the way up the Ice-Cap," she said, looking at the
peak to which she gave the popular name by which it is known in
Norway; "I can hardly believe it."
Too much out of breath to say more, she smiled at Seraphitus, who,
without answering, laid his hand upon her heart and listened to its
sounding throbs, rapid as those of a frightened bird.
Seraphita |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: that fiction, and who purr gratefully when you call them by it--
which you may do quite unrebuked. Then those same Senators smile
at the self-constructed majors and generals and judges of the South!
Indeed, we do love our distinctions, get them how we may.
And we work them for all they are worth. In prayer we call
ourselves "worms of the dust," but it is only on a sort of tacit
understanding that the remark shall not be taken at par. WE--
worms of the dust! Oh, no, we are not that. Except in fact;
and we do not deal much in fact when we are contemplating ourselves.
As a race, we do certainly love a lord--let him be Croker, or a duke,
or a prize-fighter, or whatever other personage shall chance to be the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu: IN THE FOREST
Here, O my heart, let us burn the dear dreams that are dead,
Here in this wood let us fashion a funeral pyre
Of fallen white petals and leaves that are mellow and red,
Here let us burn them in noon's flaming torches of fire.
We are weary, my heart, we are weary, so long we have borne
The heavy loved burden of dreams that are dead, let us rest,
Let us scatter their ashes away, for a while let us mourn;
We will rest, O my heart, till the shadows are gray in the west.
But soon we must rise, O my heart, we must wander again
Into the war of the world and the strife of the throng;
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