| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Iliad by Homer: tongues of fire on to the river. He burned the elms the willows
and the tamarisks, the lotus also, with the rushes and marshy
herbage that grew abundantly by the banks of the river. The eels
and fishes that go darting about everywhere in the water, these,
too, were sorely harassed by the flames that cunning Vulcan had
kindled, and the river himself was scalded, so that he spoke
saying, "Vulcan, there is no god can hold his own against you. I
cannot fight you when you flare out your flames in this way;
strive with me no longer. Let Achilles drive the Trojans out of
city immediately. What have I to do with quarrelling and helping
people?"
The Iliad |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: from the window, and both together formed a series of small
whirlwinds in the immediate vicinity of the spot where I had thought
to spend the night.
The devil fetch that harpooneer, thought I, but stop, couldn't I
steal a march on him--bolt his door inside, and jump into his bed,
not to be wakened by the most violent knockings? It seemed no bad
idea; but upon second thoughts I dismissed it. For who could tell
but what the next morning, so soon as I popped out of the room, the
harpooneer might be standing in the entry, all ready to knock me
down!
Still, looking round me again, and seeing no possible chance of
Moby Dick |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: his purse in order to empty it into mine. - I've enough in
conscience, Eugenius, said I. - Indeed, Yorick, you have not,
replied Eugenius; I know France and Italy better than you. - But
you don't consider, Eugenius, said I, refusing his offer, that
before I have been three days in Paris, I shall take care to say or
do something or other for which I shall get clapp'd up into the
Bastile, and that I shall live there a couple of months entirely at
the king of France's expense. - I beg pardon, said Eugenius drily:
really I had forgot that resource.
Now the event I treated gaily came seriously to my door.
Is it folly, or nonchalance, or philosophy, or pertinacity - or
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