| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain: sand, and coming back and fetching more sand, and
just keep it a-going till we've carted this whole Desert
over there and sold it out; and there ain't ever going
to be any opposition, either, because we'll take out a
patent."
"My goodness," I says, "we'll be as rich as Creo-
sote, won't we, Tom?"
"Yes -- Creesus, you mean. Why, that dervish was
hunting in that little hill for the treasures of the earth,
and didn't know he was walking over the real ones for
a thousand miles. He was blinder than he made the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: Where just before I said, 'where well one fattens,'
And where I said, 'there never rose a second;'
And here 'tis needful we distinguish well.
The Providence, which governeth the world
With counsel, wherein all created vision
Is vanquished ere it reach unto the bottom,
(So that towards her own Beloved might go
The bride of Him who, uttering a loud cry,
Espoused her with his consecrated blood,
Self-confident and unto Him more faithful,)
Two Princes did ordain in her behoof,
The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: either her character or her spirit. When such scenes occurred my soul
drank in their delights without analyzing them; but now, with what
vigor they detach themselves on the dark background of my troubled
life! Like diamonds they shine against the settling of thoughts
degraded by alloy, of bitter regrets for a lost happiness. Why do the
names of the two estates purchased after the Restoration, and in which
Monsieur and Madame de Mortsauf both took the deepest interest, the
Cassine and the Rhetoriere, move me more than the sacred names of the
Holy Land or of Greece? "Who loves, knows!" cried La Fontaine. Those
names possess the talismanic power of words uttered under certain
constellations by seers; they explain magic to me; they awaken
The Lily of the Valley |
