| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: precisely with his entrance that I ceased to be vividly conscious
of him. I saw that the crystal, as I had called it, had begun to
swing, and I had need of my immediate attention for Miss Anvoy.
Even when I was told afterwards that he had, as we might have said
to-day, broken the record, the manner in which that attention had
been rewarded relieved me of a sense of loss. I had of course a
perfect general consciousness that something great was going on:
it was a little like having been etherised to hear Herr Joachim
play. The old music was in the air; I felt the strong pulse of
thought, the sink and swell, the flight, the poise, the plunge; but
I knew something about one of the listeners that nobody else knew,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson: Flows past our childhood's garden still;
But ah! we children never more
Shall watch it from the water-door!
Below the yew--it still is there--
Our phantom voices haunt the air
As we were still at play,
And I can hear them call and say:
"How far is it to Babylon?"
Ah, far enough, my dear,
Far, far enough from here--
Smiling and kind, you grace a shelf
A Child's Garden of Verses |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Reign of King Edward the Third by William Shakespeare: But happily, perceiving your approach,
He hath with drawn himself to Cressey plains;
Where, as it seemeth by his good array,
He means to bid us battle presently.
KING EDWARD.
He shall be welcome; that's the thing we crave.
[Enter King John, Dukes of Normandy and Lorrain,
King of Boheme, young Phillip, and Soldiers.]
KING JOHN.
Edward, know that John, the true king of France,
Musing thou shouldst encroach upon his land,
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