| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: Returned to fresh assault, and all day long
Sat at his side, and laughed at her new toy,
And held his hand, and sang her sweetest song,
Then frowned to see how froward was the boy
Who would not with her maidenhood entwine,
Nor knew that three days since his eyes had looked on Proserpine;
Nor knew what sacrilege his lips had done,
But said, 'He will awake, I know him well,
He will awake at evening when the sun
Hangs his red shield on Corinth's citadel;
This sleep is but a cruel treachery
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Lesson of the Master by Henry James: sun and shade at the end of a large green vista formed by the level
grass and the overarching boughs.
"If you mean to imply that WE'RE bad, I protest," said one of the
gentlemen - "after making one's self agreeable all the morning!"
"Ah if they've found you agreeable - !" Mrs. St. George gaily
cried. "But if we're good the others are better."
"They must be angels then," said the amused General.
"Your husband was an angel, the way he went off at your bidding,"
the gentleman who had first spoken declared to Mrs. St. George.
"At my bidding?"
"Didn't you make him go to church?"
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: here in fear; knowing that ye were not redeemed with corruptible
things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received
by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of
Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.'
"All these things therefore store thou up in thine heart, and
remember them unceasingly, ever keeping before thine eyes the
fear of God, and his terrible judgement seat, and the splendour
of the righteous which they shall receive in the world to come,
and the shame of sinners in the depths of darkness, and the
frailty and vanity of things present, and the eternity of things
hereafter; for, `All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as
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