| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Flame and Shadow by Sara Teasdale: Places I love come back to me like music --
Mid-ocean, midnight, the waves buzz drowsily;
In the ship's deep churning the eerie phosphorescence
Is like the souls of people who were drowned at sea,
And I can hear a man's voice, speaking, hushed, insistent,
At midnight, in mid-ocean, hour on hour to me.
Old Tunes
As the waves of perfume, heliotrope, rose,
Float in the garden when no wind blows,
Come to us, go from us, whence no one knows;
So the old tunes float in my mind,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: One of the guards, who had a hook on the end of his cudgel, made a
pretence from time to time, of stirring up this mass of human filth.
An old woman in the crowd pointed them out to her little boy five
years old, and said to him: "Rascal, let that be a warning to you!"
As the songs and blasphemies increased, the man who appeared to be
the captain of the escort cracked his whip, and at that signal
a fearful dull and blind flogging, which produced the sound of hail,
fell upon the seven dray-loads; many roared and foamed at the mouth;
which redoubled the delight of the street urchins who had hastened up,
a swarm of flies on these wounds.
Jean Valjean's eyes had assumed a frightful expression.
Les Miserables |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: They repaired to the hall and took their seats at the head of the long
table. For the Spanish centuries of stately custom lived at Santa YsabeI
del Mar, inviolate, feudal, remote.
They were the only persons of quality present; and between themselves and
the gente de razon a space intervened. Behind the Padre's chair stood an
Indian to waft upon him, and another stood behind the chair of Gaston
Villere. Each of these servants wore one single white garment, and
offered the many dishes to the gente fina and refilled their glasses. At
the lower end of the table a general attendant wafted upon mesclados--the
half-breeds. There was meat with spices, and roasted quail, with various
cakes and other preparations of grain; also the brown fresh olives and
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