| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: The thing he calls the fire. For, though he thinks
The senses truly can perceive the fire,
He thinks they cannot as regards all else,
Which still are palpably as clear to sense-
To me a thought inept and crazy too.
For whither shall we make appeal? for what
More certain than our senses can there be
Whereby to mark asunder error and truth?
Besides, why rather do away with all,
And wish to allow heat only, then deny
The fire and still allow all else to be?-
Of The Nature of Things |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Camille by Alexandre Dumas: We followed Prudence downstairs. I trembled; it seemed to me that
this visit was to have a great influence on my life. I was still
more agitated than on the evening when I was introduced in the
box at the Opera Comique. As we reached the door that you know,
my heart beat so violently that I was hardly able to think.
We heard the sound of a piano. Prudence rang. The piano was
silent. A woman who looked more like a companion than a servant
opened the door. We went into the drawing-room, and from that to
the boudoir, which was then just as you have seen it since. A
young man was leaning against the mantel-piece. Marguerite,
seated at the piano, let her fingers wander over the notes,
Camille |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: But I wondered while I said it if I might not be obscure.
Is there anything in all your pedigrees and inventories
With a value more elusive than a dollar's? Are you sure
That if I starve another year for you I shall be stronger
To endure another like it -- and another -- till I'm dead?"
"Has your tame cat sold a picture? -- or more likely had a windfall?
Or for God's sake, what's broke loose? Have you a bee-hive in your head?
A little more of this from you will not be easy hearing.
Do you know that? Understand it, if you do; for if you won't. . . .
What the devil are you saying! Make believe you never said it,
And I'll say I never heard it. . . . Oh, you. . . . If you. . . ."
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