| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: not that the threads perish to no avail, even this shroud
for the hero Laertes, against the day when the ruinous doom
shall bring him low, of death that lays men at their
length. So shall none of the Achaean women in the land
count it blame in me, as well might be, were he to lie
without a winding-sheet, a man that had gotten great
possessions."
'So spake she, and our high hearts consented thereto. So
then in the daytime she would weave the mighty web, and in
the night unravel the same, when she had let place the
torches by her. Thus for the space of three years she hid
The Odyssey |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: husband ought not to take so much responsibility upon himself,
especially when he has the misfortune of finding his experience, in
this as in everything, despised. In spite of all he could say, the
countess insisted on seeing Origet,--Origet, who had managed his case
so ill, was now killing his wife. If this disease was, as they said,
the result of excessive grief, surely he was the one who had been in a
condition to have it. What griefs could the countess have had? She was
always happy; she had never had troubles or annoyances. Their fortune,
thanks to his care and to his sound ideas, was now in a most
satisfactory state; he had always allowed Madame de Mortsauf to reign
at Clochegourde; her children, well trained and now in health, gave
The Lily of the Valley |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Horse's Tale by Mark Twain: may be that you have discovered, before this, that the rigors of
military law and custom melt insensibly away and disappear when a
soldier or a regiment or the garrison wants to do something that
will please Cathy. The bands conceived the idea of stirring her
soldierly heart with a farewell which would remain in her memory
always, beautiful and unfading, and bring back the past and its
love for her whenever she should think of it; so they got their
project placed before General Burnaby, my successor, who is Cathy's
newest slave, and in spite of poverty of precedents they got his
permission. The bands knew the child's favorite military airs. By
this hint you know what is coming, but Cathy didn't. She was asked
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