| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde: me to pass, for it may be that she is in this city.'
But they mocked at him, and one of them wagged a black beard, and
set down his shield and cried, 'Of a truth, thy mother will not be
merry when she sees thee, for thou art more ill-favoured than the
toad of the marsh, or the adder that crawls in the fen. Get thee
gone. Get thee gone. Thy mother dwells not in this city.'
And another, who held a yellow banner in his hand, said to him,
'Who is thy mother, and wherefore art thou seeking for her?'
And he answered, 'My mother is a beggar even as I am, and I have
treated her evilly, and I pray ye to suffer me to pass that she may
give me her forgiveness, if it be that she tarrieth in this city.'
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: dwellings, I am deterred, for, so to speak, the country is not yet
adapted to human culture, and we are still forced to cut our
spiritual bread far thinner than our forefathers did their wheaten.
Not that all architectural ornament is to be neglected even in the
rudest periods; but let our houses first be lined with beauty, where
they come in contact with our lives, like the tenement of the
shellfish, and not overlaid with it. But, alas! I have been inside
one or two of them, and know what they are lined with.
Though we are not so degenerate but that we might possibly live
in a cave or a wigwam or wear skins today, it certainly is better to
accept the advantages, though so dearly bought, which the invention
Walden |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Nada the Lily by H. Rider Haggard: kings, and should command the impis of the land, if I would but show
them a way to kill Chaka and become kings. Then, when they had done
swearing, I spoke, weighing my words:--
"In the great kraal beyond the river, O ye Princes, there sit, not one
regiment but two. One is named the Slayers and loves Chaka the king,
who has done well by them, giving them cattle and wives. The other is
named the Bees, and that regiment is hungry and longs for cattle and
girls; moreover, of that regiment the Prince Umhlangana is the
general, and it loves him. Now this is my plan--to summon the Bees in
the name of Umhlangana, not the Slayers in the name of Chaka. Bend
forward, O Princes, that I may whisper in your ears."
Nada the Lily |
