| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Shakespeare: Being had, to triumph; being lacked, to hope.
LIII
What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
Since every one, hath every one, one shade,
And you but one, can every shadow lend.
Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit
Is poorly imitated after you;
On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,
And you in Grecian tires are painted new:
Speak of the spring, and foison of the year,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: to throw in with her other little peculiarities the extremest request
which a wife could make.
They proceeded to the schools that morning as usual, Sue entering
the class-room, where he could see the back of her head through
the glass partition whenever he turned his eyes that way.
As he went on giving and hearing lessons his forehead and eyebrows
twitched from concentrated agitation of thought, till at length
he tore a scrap from a sheet of scribbling paper and wrote:
Your request prevents my attending to work at all. I don't know
what I am doing! Was it seriously made?
He folded the piece of paper very small, and gave it to a little
Jude the Obscure |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: barley fled to the mountains; and the asses, the mules both great and
small, the oxen from Taormina, and the antelopes,--not a single one
left! all carried away! It is a curse! I shall not survive it!" He
went on again in tears: "Ah! if you knew how full the cellars were,
and how the ploughshares shone! Ah! the fine rams! ah! the fine
bulls!--"
Hamilcar's wrath was choking him. It burst forth:
"Be silent! Am I a pauper then? No lies! speak the truth! I wish to
know all that I have lost to the last shekel, to the last cab!
Abdalonim, bring me the accounts of the ships, of the caravans, of the
farms, of the house! And if your consciences are not clear, woe be on
Salammbo |
