| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Duchess of Padua by Oscar Wilde: There is my cloak and vizard; they have orders
Not to be curious: when you pass the gate
Turn to the left, and at the second bridge
You will find horses waiting: by to-morrow
You will be at Venice, safe. [A pause.]
Do you not speak?
Will you not even curse me ere you go? -
You have the right. [A pause.]
You do not understand
There lies between you and the headsman's axe
Hardly so much sand in the hour-glass
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: there where Macalister pointed, he relished the thought of the storm
and the dark night and the fishermen striving there. He liked that men
should labour and sweat on the windy beach at night; pitting muscle and
brain against the waves and the wind; he liked men to work like that,
and women to keep house, and sit beside sleeping children indoors,
while men were drowned, out there in a storm. So James could tell, so
Cam could tell (they looked at him, they looked at each other), from
his toss and his vigilance and the ring in his voice, and the little
tinge of Scottish accent which came into his voice, making him seem
like a peasant himself, as he questioned Macalister about the eleven
ships that had been driven into the bay in a storm. Three had sunk.
To the Lighthouse |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: Nevertheless it was intended for an eye that would be swift to see it;
and it was meant to move a kind heart to try to effect the liberation of a
poor reformed and purified fellow lying in the fell grip of consumption.
When I for the first time heard that letter read, nine years ago,
I felt that it was the most remarkable one I had ever encountered.
And it so warmed me toward Mr. Brown of St. Louis that I said that if ever
I visited that city again, I would seek out that excellent man and kiss
the hem of his garment if it was a new one. Well, I visited St. Louis,
but I did not hunt for Mr. Brown; for, alas! the investigations
of long ago had proved that the benevolent Brown, like 'Jack Hunt,'
was not a real person, but a sheer invention of that gifted rascal,
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