| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: Where breathe the sleepers evenly; and lo!
After the loud wars, triumphs, trumpets, tears
And clamour of man's passion, Death appears,
And we must rise and go.
Soon are eyes tired with sunshine; soon the ears
Weary of utterance, seeing all is said;
Soon, racked by hopes and fears,
The all-pondering, all-contriving head,
Weary with all things, wearies of the years;
And our sad spirits turn toward the dead;
And the tired child, the body, longs for bed.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Professor by Charlotte Bronte: "I soon left Mr. and Mrs. Crimsworth to themselves; a servant
conducted me to my bed-room; in closing my chamber-door, I shut
out all intruders--you, Charles, as well as the rest.
"Good-bye for the present,
"WILLIAM CRIMSWORTH."
To this letter I never got an answer; before my old friend
received it, he had accepted a Government appointment in one of
the colonies, and was already on his way to the scene of his
official labours. What has become of him since, I know not.
The leisure time I have at command, and which I intended to
employ for his private benefit, I shall now dedicate to that of
The Professor |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: "You ought to have the place of honor, Captain Littlepage," I
said.
"A happy, rural seat of various views,"
he quoted, as he gazed out into the sunshine and up the long wooded
shore. Then he glanced at me, and looked all about him as pleased
as a child.
"My quotation was from Paradise Lost: the greatest of poems,
I suppose you know?" and I nodded. "There's nothing that ranks, to
my mind, with Paradise Lost; it's all lofty, all lofty," he
continued. "Shakespeare was a great poet; he copied life, but you
have to put up with a great deal of low talk."
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