| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: relating singular facts connected with the phenomena of mind.
One of the most extraordinary of these incidents beyond question is
this, which I will here record, not only because it concerns Lambert,
but because it perhaps was the turning-point of his scientific career.
By the law of custom in all schools, Thursday and Sunday were
holidays; but the services, which we were made to attend very
regularly, so completely filled up Sunday, that we considered Thursday
our only real day of freedom. After once attending Mass, we had a long
day before us to spend in walks in the country round the town of
Vendome. The manor of Rochambeau was the most interesting object of
our excursions, perhaps by reason of its distance; the smaller boys
Louis Lambert |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Helen of Troy And Other Poems by Sara Teasdale: The winds have grown articulate in thee,
And voiced again the wail of ancient woe
That smote upon the winds of long ago:
The cries of Trojan women as they flee,
The quivering moan of pale Andromache,
Now lifted loud with pain and now brought low.
It is the soul of sorrow that we know,
As in a shell the soul of all the sea.
So sometimes in the compass of a song,
Unknown to him who sings, thro' lips that live,
The voiceless dead of long-forgotten lands
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare: Within your hollow-swelling feather'd breasts,
And in my hearing be you mute and dumb!
(My restless discord loves no stops nor rests;
A woeful hostess brooks not merry guests:)
Relish your nimble notes to pleasing ears;
Distress likes dumps when time is kept with tears.
'Come, Philomel, that sing'st of ravishment,
Make thy sad grove in my dishevell'd hair:
As the dank earth weeps at thy languishment,
So I at each sad strain will strain a tear,
And with deep groans the diapason bear:
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