| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: predicted came to pass in 1302. See G. Villani, 1. viii c. 59
v. 95. 'Twixt Po, the mount, the Reno, and the shore.] The
boundaries of Romagna.
v. 99. Lizio.] Lizio da Valbona, introduced into Boccaccio's
Decameron, G. v. N, 4.
v. 100. Manardi, Traversaro, and Carpigna.1 Arrigo Manardi of
Faenza, or as some say, of Brettinoro, Pier Traversaro, lord of
Ravenna, and Guido di Carpigna of Montefeltro.
v. 102. In Bologna the low artisan.] One who had been a
mechanic named Lambertaccio, arrived at almost supreme power in
Bologna.
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: tomatoes about her, preparatory for a start, Margret kept her
hand on the side of the cart, and walked slowly by it down the
road. Once, looking at the girl, she thought with a half smile
how oddly clean she was. The flannel skirt she arranged so
complacently had been washed until the colours had run madly into
each other in sheer desperation; her hair was knotted with
relentless tightness into a comb such as old women wear. The
very cart, patched as it was, had a snug, cosy look; the masses
of vegetables, green and crimson and scarlet, were heaped with a
certain reference to the glow of colour, Margret noticed,
wondering if it were accidental. Looking up, she saw the girl's
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: he killed a man," and had the effect of stimulating my curiosity. I
would have accepted without question the information that Gatsby sprang
from the swamps of Louisiana or from the lower East Side of New York.
That was comprehensible. But young men didn't--at least in my provincial
inexperience I believed they didn't--drift coolly out of nowhere and buy
a palace on Long Island Sound.
"Anyhow, he gives large parties," said Jordan, changing the subject
with an urbane distaste for the concrete. "And I like large parties.
They're so intimate. At small parties there isn't any privacy."
There was the boom of a bass drum, and the voice of the orchestra leader
rang out suddenly above the echolalia of the garden.
The Great Gatsby |
