| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: beautiful which it did not resemble. The trees upon the bank
were giant garden plants; he noted a definite order in their
arrangement, inhaled the fragrance of their blooms. A
strange roseate light shone through the spaces among their
trunks and the wind made in their branches the music of
AEolian harps. He had not wish to perfect his escape -- he
was content to remain in that enchanting spot until retaken.
A whiz and a rattle of grapeshot among the branches high
above his head roused him from his dream. The baffled
cannoneer had fired him a random farewell. He sprang
to his feet, rushed up the sloping bank, and plunged into the
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: Alas! they know the far Lethaean spring,
The violet-hidden waters well they know,
Where one whose feet with tired wandering
Are faint and broken may take heart and go,
And from those dark depths cool and crystalline
Drink, and draw balm, and sleep for sleepless souls, and anodyne.
But we oppress our natures, God or Fate
Is our enemy, we starve and feed
On vain repentance - O we are born too late!
What balm for us in bruised poppy seed
Who crowd into one finite pulse of time
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: puffed forth or again inhaled into its vast leathern lungs. In
the intervals of brightness it was easy to distinguish objects in
remote corners of the shop and the horseshoes that hung upon the
wall; in the momentary gloom the fire seemed to be glimmering
amidst the vagueness of unenclosed space. Moving about in this
red glare and alternate dusk was the figure of the blacksmith,
well worthy to be viewed in so picturesque an aspect of light and
shade, where the bright blaze struggled with the black night, as
if each would have snatched his comely strength from the other.
Anon he drew a white-hot bar of iron from the coals, laid it on
the anvil, uplifted his arm of might, and was soon enveloped in
Mosses From An Old Manse |
