| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: He spoke with a gaiety through which I could still catch the finest
little quiver of resentful passion; but I can't begin to express
the effect upon me of an implication of surrender even so faint.
It was as if what I had yearned for had come at last only to
astonish me. "Well, yes--I may as well make a clean breast of it.
it was precisely for that."
He waited so long that I supposed it for the purpose of repudiating the
assumption on which my action had been founded; but what he finally said was:
"Do you mean now--here?"
"There couldn't be a better place or time." He looked round him uneasily,
and I had the rare--oh, the queer!--impression of the very first symptom I had
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: {103} but the ship stayed where it was, for the men had left off
rowing. I went round, therefore, and exhorted them man by man
not to lose heart.
"'My friends,' said I, 'this is not the first time that we have
been in danger, and we are in nothing like so bad a case as when
the Cyclops shut us up in his cave; nevertheless, my courage and
wise counsel saved us then, and we shall live to look back on
all this as well. Now, therefore, let us all do as I say, trust
in Jove and row on with might and main. As for you, coxswain,
these are your orders; attend to them, for the ship is in your
hands; turn her head away from these steaming rapids and hug the
The Odyssey |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Enoch Arden, &c. by Alfred Tennyson: Persuasion, no, nor death could alter her:
He, passionately hopefuller, would go,
Labor for his own Edith, and return
In such a sunlight of prosperity
He should not be rejected. `Write to me!
They loved me, and because I love their child
They hate me: there is war between us, dear,
Which breaks all bonds but ours; we must remain
Sacred to one another.' So they talk'd,
Poor children, for their comfort: the wind blew;
The rain of heaven, and their own bitter tears,
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