| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: thee, says my uncle Toby, rising from his chair, and going across the room,
with the fly in his hand,--I'll not hurt a hair of thy head:--Go, says he,
lifting up the sash, and opening his hand as he spoke, to let it escape;--
go, poor devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee?--This world surely
is wide enough to hold both thee and me.
I was but ten years old when this happened: but whether it was, that the
action itself was more in unison to my nerves at that age of pity, which
instantly set my whole frame into one vibration of most pleasurable
sensation;--or how far the manner and expression of it might go towards
it;--or in what degree, or by what secret magick,--a tone of voice and
harmony of movement, attuned by mercy, might find a passage to my heart, I
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy: central channel in the rocky bed of the winter current. Knight
scrambled through the bushes which at this point nearly covered
the brook from sight, and leapt down upon the dry portion of the
river bottom.
'Elfride, I never saw such a sight!' he exclaimed. 'The hazels
overhang the river's course in a perfect arch, and the floor is
beautifully paved. The place reminds one of the passages of a
cloister. Let me help you down.'
He assisted her through the marginal underwood and down to the
stones. They walked on together to a tiny cascade about a foot
wide and high, and sat down beside it on the flags that for nine
 A Pair of Blue Eyes |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Dreams & Dust by Don Marquis: (1914)
CLOTHED on with thunder and with steel
And black against the dawn
The whirling armies clash and reel. . . .
A wind, and they are gone
Like mists withdrawn,
Like mists withdrawn!
Like clouds withdrawn, like driven sands,
Earth's body vanisheth:
One solid thing unconquered stands,
The ghost that humbles death.
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