| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: take one view of it. It's for the Endowment or it's for nothing."
"The Endowment," I permitted myself to observe, "is a conception
superficially sublime, but fundamentally ridiculous."
"Are you repeating Mr. Gravener's words?" Adelaide asked.
"Possibly, though I've not seen him for months. It's simply the
way it strikes me too. It's an old wife's tale. Gravener made
some reference to the legal aspect, but such an absurdly loose
arrangement has NO legal aspect."
"Ruth doesn't insist on that," said Mrs. Mulville; "and it's, for
her, exactly this technical weakness that constitutes the force of
the moral obligation."
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Nada the Lily by H. Rider Haggard: grew towards the evening--for I had wandered long in the forest--I was
afraid no more. So I climbed up the steep rock, where little bushes
grow like hair on the arms of a man, till at last I came to the knees
of the stone Witch, which are the space before the cave. I lifted by
head over the brink of the rock and looked, and I tell you,
Umslopogaas, my blood ran cold and my heart turned to water, for
there, before the cave, rolled wolves, many and great. Some slept and
growled in their sleep, some gnawed at the skulls of dead game, some
sat up like dogs and their tongues hung from their grinning jaws. I
looked, I saw, and beyond I discovered the mouth of the cave, where
the bones of the boy should be. But I had no wish to come there, being
Nada the Lily |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Love Songs by Sara Teasdale: Knowing how well on earth your love sufficed me,
A lamp in darkness.
IV
A November Night
There! See the line of lights,
A chain of stars down either side the street --
Why can't you lift the chain and give it to me,
A necklace for my throat? I'd twist it round
And you could play with it. You smile at me
As though I were a little dreamy child
Behind whose eyes the fairies live. . . . And see,
|
