| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from King Lear by William Shakespeare: If you do chance to hear of that blind traitor,
Preferment falls on him that cuts him off.
Osw. Would I could meet him, madam! I should show
What party I do follow.
Reg. Fare thee well. Exeunt.
Scene VI.
The country near Dover.
Enter Gloucester, and Edgar [like a Peasant].
Glou. When shall I come to th' top of that same hill?
Edg. You do climb up it now. Look how we labour.
Glou. Methinks the ground is even.
King Lear |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: G.J.
HEARSE, n. Death's baby-carriage.
HEART, n. An automatic, muscular blood-pump. Figuratively, this
useful organ is said to be the esat of emotions and sentiments -- a
very pretty fancy which, however, is nothing but a survival of a once
universal belief. It is now known that the sentiments and emotions
reside in the stomach, being evolved from food by chemical action of
the gastric fluid. The exact process by which a beefsteak becomes a
feeling -- tender or not, according to the age of the animal from
which it was cut; the successive stages of elaboration through which a
caviar sandwich is transmuted to a quaint fancy and reappears as a
The Devil's Dictionary |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: "The fellow only opened the door and put his arm in to hang the coat up.
All the same--"
"I never thought of that," I whispered back, even more appalled
than before at the closeness of the shave, and marveling at
that something unyielding in his character which was carrying
him through so finely. There was no agitation in his whisper.
Whoever was being driven distracted, it was not he. He was sane.
And the proof of his sanity was continued when he took up
the whispering again.
"It would never do for me to come to life again."
It was something that a ghost might have said. But what he was alluding
The Secret Sharer |
