| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Yates Pride by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: "Harry's hair was never gold--just an ordinary brown," said
Amelia. "Anyway, the Lawtons turned gray young."
"She won't think of that at all," said Sophia.
"I wonder why Eudora always avoided him so, years ago," said
Amelia.
"Why doesn't a girl in a field of daisies stop to pick one, which
she never forgets?" said Sophia. "Eudora had so many chances,
and I don't think her heart was fixed when she was very young; at
least, I don't think it was fixed so she knew it."
"I wonder," said Amelia, "if he will go and call on her."
Amelia privately wished that she lived near enough to know if
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: at will. All history, whether political, religious, artistic, or
literary, seems to prove that such is the case.
As an example, let us take a very short period of French history,
merely that from 1790 to 1820, a period of thirty years'
duration, that of a generation. In the course of it we see the
crowd at first monarchical become very revolutionary, then very
imperialist, and again very monarchical. In the matter of
religion it gravitates in the same lapse of time from Catholicism
to atheism, then towards deism, and then returns to the most
pronounced forms of Catholicism. These changes take place not
only amongst the masses, but also amongst those who direct them.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: This side and that they to their posts descended;
They stretched their hooks towards the pitch-ensnared,
Who were already baked within the crust,
And in this manner busied did we leave them.
Inferno: Canto XXIII
Silent, alone, and without company
We went, the one in front, the other after,
As go the Minor Friars along their way.
Upon the fable of Aesop was directed
My thought, by reason of the present quarrel,
Where he has spoken of the frog and mouse;
The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
