| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: Hathaway's, if there were any evidence that their friendship ceased
when he stopped writing sonnets to her. As a matter of fact the
consolidation of a passion into an enduring intimacy generally puts an
end to sonnets.
That the Dark Lady broke Shakespear's heart, as Mr Harris will have it
she did, is an extremely unShakespearian hypothesis. "Men have died
from time to time, and worms have eaten them; but not for love," says
Rosalind. Richard of Gloster, into whom Shakespear put all his own
impish superiority to vulgar sentiment, exclaims
And this word "love," which greybeards call divine,
Be resident in men like one another
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Rig Veda: to perform
an envoy's duty.
With lightly-rolling car and best draught-horses, bring the
Gods
hither and sit down as Hotar.
4 May the delight of Gods spread out transversely: may it be
with us
long in length and fragrant.
O Holy Grass divine, with friendly spirit bring thou the willing
Gods
whose Chief is Indra.
The Rig Veda |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: the Polar Sea. The boats being hauled on shore at our
dinner-hour, we were admiring from the distance of half a
mile a perpendicular cliff of ice, and were wishing that some
more fragments would fall. At last, down came a mass with
a roaring noise, and immediately we saw the smooth outline
of a wave travelling towards us. The men ran down as
quickly as they could to the boats; for the chance of their
being dashed to pieces was evident. One of the seamen just
caught hold of the bows, as the curling breaker reached it:
he was knocked over and over, but not hurt, and the boats
though thrice lifted on high and let fall again, received no
The Voyage of the Beagle |
