| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: hidden among the waving grain, while the four black steeds were
swiftly whirling along the chariot, in which her beloved
Proserpina was so unwillingly borne away. You recollect, too,
the loud scream which Proserpina gave, just when the chariot
was out of sight.
Of all the child's outcries, this last shriek was the only one
that reached the ears of Mother Ceres. She had mistaken the
rumbling of the chariot wheels for a peal of thunder, and
imagined that a shower was coming up, and that it would assist
her in making the corn grow. But, at the sound of Proserpina's
shriek, she started, and looked about in every direction, not
Tanglewood Tales |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: treasures contained in the parlor, where for over two centuries the
family life had glided on.
The Claes who died for the liberties of Ghent, and who might in these
days be thought a mere ordinary craftsman if the historian omitted to
say that he possessed over forty thousand silver marks, obtained by
the manufacture of sail-cloth for the all-powerful Venetian navy,--
this Claes had a friend in the famous sculptor in wood, Van Huysum of
Bruges. The artist had dipped many a time into the purse of the rich
craftsman. Some time before the rebellion of the men of Ghent, Van
Huysum, grown rich himself, had secretly carved for his friend a wall-
decoration in ebony, representing the chief scenes in the life of Van
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Moral Emblems by Robert Louis Stevenson: 'I shall be here when you are burned.'
So far dissension ruled the pair,
Each turned on each a frowning air,
When flickering from the bank anigh,
A flight of martens met their eye.
Sometime their course they watched; and then -
They nodded off to sleep again.
Poem: IV - THE TRAMPS
Now long enough had day endured,
Or King Apollo Palinured,
Seaward he steers his panting team,
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