| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Prufrock/Other Observations by T. S. Eliot: Another bank defaulter has confessed.
I keep my countenance,
I remain self-possessed
Except when a street piano, mechanical and tired
Reiterates some worn-out common song
With the smell of hyacinths across the garden
Recalling things that other people have desired.
Are these ideas right or wrong?
III
The October night comes down; returning as before
Except for a slight sensation of being ill at ease
Prufrock/Other Observations |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: thousand guineas would be in England. I then said to the queen,
"since I was now her majesty's most humble creature and vassal, I
must beg the favour, that Glumdalclitch, who had always tended me
with so much care and kindness, and understood to do it so well,
might be admitted into her service, and continue to be my nurse
and instructor."
Her majesty agreed to my petition, and easily got the farmer's
consent, who was glad enough to have his daughter preferred at
court, and the poor girl herself was not able to hide her joy.
My late master withdrew, bidding me farewell, and saying he had
left me in a good service; to which I replied not a word, only
Gulliver's Travels |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: Even from so imperfectly gathered a garland it will be seen that the
Japanese do not lack for opportunities to admire, nor do they turn
coldly away from what they are given. Indeed, they may be said to
live in a chronic state of flower-fever; but in spite of the vast
amount of admiration which they bestow on plants, it is not so much
the quantity of that admiration as the quality of it which is
remarkable. The intense appreciation shown the subject by the Far
Oriental is something whose very character seems strange to us, and
when in addition we consider that it permeates the entire people
from the commonest coolie to the most aesthetic courtier, it becomes
to our comprehension a state of things little short of inexplicable.
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