| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: Balaam.
"Well, it don't look like I could," said the Virginian, lazily.
"Then don't try it, so long as it's not your horse, my friend."
Again the Southerner levelled his eye on Balaam. "All right," he
said, in the same gentle voice. "And don't you call me your
friend. You've made that mistake twiced."
The road was shadeless, as it had been from the start, and they
could not travel fast. During the first few hours all coolness
was driven out of the glassy morning, and another day of
illimitable sun invested the world with its blaze. The pale Bow
Leg Range was coming nearer, but its hard hot slants and rifts
The Virginian |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: Murder her brother is her bedfellow,
And the Plague chambers with her: in obscene
And bloody paths her treacherous feet are set;
Better the empty desert and a soul inviolate!
For gentle brotherhood, the harmony
Of living in the healthful air, the swift
Clean beauty of strong limbs when men are free
And women chaste, these are the things which lift
Our souls up more than even Agnolo's
Gaunt blinded Sibyl poring o'er the scroll of human woes,
Or Titian's little maiden on the stair
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: homage? Yet so it is--it is-O Egmont, I held thee safe before God and
man, safe as in my arms! What was I to thee. Thou hast called me thine,
my whole being was devoted to thee. What am I now? In vain I stretch out
my hand to the toils that environ thee. Thou helpless and I free!--Here is
the key that unlocks my chamber door. My going out and my coming in,
depend upon my own caprice; yet, alas; to aid thee I am powerless!--Oh,
bind me that I may not despair; hurl me into the deepest dungeon, that I
may dash my head against the damp walls, groan for freedom, and dream
how I would rescue him if fetters did not hold me bound.--Now I am free,
and in freedom lies the anguish of impotence.--Conscious of my own
existence, yet unable to stir a limb in his behalf, alas! even this
Egmont |
