| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Helen of Troy And Other Poems by Sara Teasdale: I hear them laugh and kiss,
And I forget my day-dream knight,
And long for a love like this.
II
The Minstrel sings:
I lie beside the princess' tower,
So close she cannot see my face,
And watch her dreaming all day long,
And bending with a lily's grace.
Her cheeks are paler than the moon
That sails along a sunny sky,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: the charm of almost dewy freshness; he wore his blue cloth overcoat
unbuttoned; his boots were shiny; his cheeks, freshly shaven, had a
sort of gloss; and even his heavy-lidded eyes, refreshed by a night
of peaceful slumber, sent out glances of comparative alertness.
Through the park railings these glances beheld men and women riding
in the Row, couples cantering past harmoniously, others advancing
sedately at a walk, loitering groups of three or four, solitary
horsemen looking unsociable, and solitary women followed at a long
distance by a groom with a cockade to his hat and a leather belt
over his tight-fitting coat. Carriages went bowling by, mostly
two-horse broughams, with here and there a victoria with the skin
The Secret Agent |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: many pleasant excursions, interrupted of yore before our
curiosity was fully satisfied. It may be that we have kept in
mind, during all these years, the recollection of some valley
into which we have just looked down for a moment before we
lost sight of it in the disorder of the hills; it may be that
we have lain awake at night, and agreeably tantalised
ourselves with the thought of corners we had never turned, or
summits we had all but climbed: we shall now be able, as we
tell ourselves, to complete all these unfinished pleasures,
and pass beyond the barriers that confined our recollections.
The promise is so great, and we are all so easily led
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