| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac: no doubt, held a watch. His hat, though worn rather jauntily,
revealed, more than any of the above symptoms, the poverty of a man
who was totally unable to pay sixteen francs to a hat-maker, being
forced to live from hand to mouth. The former admirer of Florentine
twirled a cane with a chased gold knob, which was horribly battered.
The blue trousers, the waistcoat of a material called "Scotch stuff,"
a sky-blue cravat and a pink-striped cotton shirt, expressed, in the
midst of all this ruin, such a latent desire to SHOW-OFF that the
contrast was not only a sight to see, but a lesson to be learned.
"And that is Georges!" said Oscar, in his own mind,--"a man I left in
possession of thirty thousand francs a year!"
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Twilight Land by Howard Pyle: why: though he was richer and wiser and greater than most kings,
and had all that he wanted and more into the bargain, he was so
afraid of becoming proud of his own prosperity that he had these
words written in letters of gold upon the walls of each and every
room in his palace:
All Things are as Fate wills.
Now, by-and-by and after a while the king died; for when his time
comes, even the rich and the wise man must die, as well as the
poor and the simple man. So the king's son came, in turn, to be
king of that land; and, though he was not so bad as the world of
men goes, he was not the man that his father was, as this story
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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: The first time that thou camest to the city.
But it behoved the mutilated stone
Which guards the bridge, that Florence should provide
A victim in her latest hour of peace.
With all these families, and others with them,
Florence beheld I in so great repose,
That no occasion had she whence to weep;
With all these families beheld so just
And glorious her people, that the lily
Never upon the spear was placed reversed,
Nor by division was vermilion made."
The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
