| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Iliad by Homer: any one, nevertheless they drew the body away. But the Achaeans
did not lose it long, for Ajax, foremost of all the Danaans after
the son of Peleus alike in stature and prowess, quickly rallied
them and made towards the front like a wild boar upon the
mountains when he stands at bay in the forest glades and routs
the hounds and lusty youths that have attacked him--even so did
Ajax son of Telamon passing easily in among the phalanxes of the
Trojans, disperse those who had bestridden Patroclus and were
most bent on winning glory by dragging him off to their city. At
this moment Hippothous brave son of the Pelasgian Lethus, in his
zeal for Hector and the Trojans, was dragging the body off by the
The Iliad |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: a change. But his heart did not hail the barkentine as usual. Books,
music, pale paper, and print--this was all that was coming to him,
some of its savor had gone; for the siren voice of Life had been speaking
with him face to face, and in his spirit, deep down, the love of the
world was restlessly answering it. Young Gaston showed more eagerness
than the Padre over this arrival of the vessel that might be bringing
Trovatore in the nick of time. Now he would have the chance, before he
took his leave, to help rehearse the new music with the choir. He would
be a missionary, too: a perfectly new experience.
"And you still forgive Verdi the sins of his youth?" he said to his host.
"I wonder if you could forgive mine?"
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Paz by Honore de Balzac: a joy such as I can never express to you. You wished for a trifle
at one time which kept me seven hours in a cab scouring the city;
and what delight it was to weary myself for you. Ah! when I saw
you, unseen by you, smiling among your flowers, I could forget
that no one loved me. On certain days, when my happiness turned my
head, I went at night and kissed the spot where, to me, your feet
had left their luminous traces. The air you had breathed was
balmy; in it I breathed in more of life; I inhaled, as they say
persons do in the tropics, a vapor laden with creative principles.
"I MUST tell you these things to explain the strange presumption
of my involuntary thoughts,--I would have died rather than avow it
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