| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: in the face of Heaven, and before these wise and upright rulers,
and in hearing of all the people, as touching the vileness and
blackness of
82 THE SCARLET LETTER
your sin. Knowing your natural temper better than l, he could
The Scarlet Letter |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: For who'll explain what body's feeling is,
Except by what the public fact itself
Has given and taught us? "But when soul is parted,
Body's without all sense." True!- loses what
Was even in its life-time not its own;
And much beside it loses, when soul's driven
Forth from that life-time. Or, to say that eyes
Themselves can see no thing, but through the same
The mind looks forth, as out of opened doors,
Is- a hard saying; since the feel in eyes
Says the reverse. For this itself draws on
Of The Nature of Things |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: (and how unsuspectingly!)--until nine--which is late for us--then
went upstairs, Jean's friendly German dog following. At my door
Jean said, "I can't kiss you good night, father: I have a cold,
and you could catch it." I bent and kissed her hand. She was
moved--I saw it in her eyes--and she impulsively kissed my hand
in return. Then with the usual gay "Sleep well, dear!" from
both, we parted.
At half past seven this morning I woke, and heard voices
outside my door. I said to myself, "Jean is starting on her
usual horseback flight to the station for the mail." Then Katy
[1] entered, stood quaking and gasping at my bedside a moment,
What is Man? |
