| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: it was hedged in by dense creepers which knotted tree to tree,
and burst here and there into star-shaped crimson blossoms.
The sighing and creaking up above were broken every now and then
by the jarring cry of some startled animal. The atmosphere was close
and the air came at them in languid puffs of scent. The vast green
light was broken here and there by a round of pure yellow sunlight
which fell through some gap in the immense umbrella of green above,
and in these yellow spaces crimson and black butterflies were circling
and settling. Terence and Rachel hardly spoke.
Not only did the silence weigh upon them, but they were both unable
to frame any thoughts. There was something between them which had to be
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: stone of Heraclea. This stone not only attracts iron rings, but also
imparts to them a similar power of attracting other rings; and sometimes
you may see a number of pieces of iron and rings suspended from one another
so as to form quite a long chain: and all of them derive their power of
suspension from the original stone. In like manner the Muse first of all
inspires men herself; and from these inspired persons a chain of other
persons is suspended, who take the inspiration. For all good poets, epic
as well as lyric, compose their beautiful poems not by art, but because
they are inspired and possessed. And as the Corybantian revellers when
they dance are not in their right mind, so the lyric poets are not in their
right mind when they are composing their beautiful strains: but when
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle: alone to rave away his life in madness, or to sit sunken in his
gloomy despair till death mercifully released him from torment.
It rarely if ever happened that anything was known of him after
having been marooned. A boat's crew from some vessel, sailing by
chance that way, might perhaps find a few chalky bones bleaching
upon the white sand in the garish glare of the sunlight, but that
was all. And such were marooners.
By far the largest number of pirate captains were Englishmen,
for, from the days of good Queen Bess, English sea captains
seemed to have a natural turn for any species of venture that had
a smack of piracy in it, and from the great Admiral Drake of the
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates |
