| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: their force on the granite and produced an intolerable heat--for he
had had the stupidity to place himself adversely to the shadow thrown
by the verdant majestic heads of the palm trees. He looked at the
solitary trees and shuddered--they reminded him of the graceful shafts
crowned with foliage which characterize the Saracen columns in the
cathedral of Arles.
But when, after counting the palm trees, he cast his eyes around him,
the most horrible despair was infused into his soul. Before him
stretched an ocean without limit. The dark sand of the desert spread
further than eye could reach in every direction, and glittered like
steel struck with bright light. It might have been a sea of looking-
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Lamentable Tragedy of Locrine and Mucedorus by William Shakespeare: [Exit.]
ACT V. SCENE I. A chamber in the Royal Palace.
[Enter Locrine, Camber, Assarachus, Thrasimachus.]
ASSARACHUS.
But tell me, cousin, died my brother so?
Now who is left to helpless Albion?
That as a pillar might uphold our state,
That might strike terror to our daring foes?
Now who is left to hapless Brittain,
That might defend her from the barbarous hands
Of those that still desire her ruinous fall,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: playground, lie desolate and defiled. You cannot baptize them
rightly in those inch-deep fonts of yours, unless you baptize them
also in the sweet waters which the great Lawgiver strikes forth for
ever from the rocks of your native land--waters which a Pagan would
have worshipped in their purity, and you worship only with
pollution. You cannot lead your children faithfully to those narrow
axe-hewn church altars of yours, while the dark azure altars in
heaven--the mountains that sustain your island throne,--mountains on
which a Pagan would have seen the powers of heaven rest in every
wreathed cloud--remain for you without inscription; altars built,
not to, but by an Unknown God.
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