| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: The torment undergo of the first round
In different herds. Man can do violence
To himself and his own blessings: and for this
He in the second round must aye deplore
With unavailing penitence his crime,
Whoe'er deprives himself of life and light,
In reckless lavishment his talent wastes,
And sorrows there where he should dwell in joy.
To God may force be offer'd, in the heart
Denying and blaspheming his high power,
And nature with her kindly law contemning.
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Underground City by Jules Verne: of the loch must be as rough as those of the Firth of Forth."
"Well! what does it matter after all?" returned Simon Ford;
"the seam won't be any the worse because it is under a loch.
It would not be the first time that coal has been looked for under
the very bed of the ocean! When we have to work under the bottom
of the Caledonian Canal, where will be the harm?"
"Well said, Simon," cried the engineer, who could not restrain a smile
at the overman's enthusiasm; "let us cut our trenches under the waters
of the sea! Let us bore the bed of the Atlantic like a strainer;
let us with our picks join
our brethren of the United States through the subsoil of the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: the streets, they are as bright new sovereigns to fishy and
obliterated sixpences. Some disparaging thoughts upon our own
generation could hardly fail to present themselves; but it is
perhaps only the SACER VATES who is wanting; and we also,
painted by such a man as Carolus Duran, may look in holiday
immortality upon our children and grandchildren.
Raeburn's young women, to be frank, are by no means of
the same order of merit. No one, of course, could be
insensible to the presence of Miss Janet Suttie or Mrs.
Campbell of Possil. When things are as pretty as that,
criticism is out of season. But, on the whole, it is only
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