| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane: command was fleeing. The flag suddenly sank
down as if dying. Its motion as it fell was a
gesture of despair.
Wild yells came from behind the walls of
smoke. A sketch in gray and red dissolved into
a moblike body of men who galloped like wild
horses.
The veteran regiments on the right and left of
the 304th immediately began to jeer. With the
passionate song of the bullets and the banshee
shrieks of shells were mingled loud catcalls and
The Red Badge of Courage |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Prufrock/Other Observations by T. S. Eliot: And turning toward the window, should say:
"That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all."
* * * *
No I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
Prufrock/Other Observations |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: belong to God and yet to stay with men! You hear the voice that cries
to you, 'Advance!' Often celestial visions of descending Angels
compass you about with songs of praise; then, tearless, uncomplaining,
must you watch them as they reascent the skies! To murmur is to
forfeit all. Resignation is a fruit that ripens at the gates of
heaven. How powerful, how glorious the calm smile, the pure brow of
the resigned human creature. Radiant is the light of that brow. They
who live in its atmosphere grow purer. That calm glance penetrates and
softens. More eloquent by silence than the prophet by speech, such
beings triumph by their simple presence. Their ears are quick to hear
as a faithful dog listening for his master. Brighter than hope,
Seraphita |
