| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Pericles by William Shakespeare: Holding out gold that's by the touchstone tried;
The motto thus, 'Sic spectanda fides.'
[The Sixith Knight, Pericles, passes over.]
SIMONIDES.
And what's
The sixth and last, the which the knight himself
With such a graceful courtesy deliver'd?
THALIARD.
He seems to be a stranger; but his present is
A wither'd branch, that's only green at top;
The motto, 'In hac spe vivo.'
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: family; and Burns had her received and cared for in the house
of a friend. For he remained to the last imperfect in his
character of Don Juan, and lacked the sinister courage to
desert his victim. About the middle of February (1788), he
had to tear himself from his Clarinda and make a journey into
the south-west on business. Clarinda gave him two shirts for
his little son. They were daily to meet in prayer at an
appointed hour. Burns, too late for the post at Glasgow,
sent her a letter by parcel that she might not have to wait.
Clarinda on her part writes, this time with a beautiful
simplicity: "I think the streets look deserted-like since
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry: and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they
are wisest. They are the magi.
End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of THE GIFT OF THE MAGI.
 The Gift of the Magi |