| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: And sees the shadow of death in many faces,
And thinks the world is strange.
He desires immortal music and spring forever,
And beauty that knows no change.
IX. CABARET
We sit together and talk, or smoke in silence.
You say (but use no words) 'this night is passing
As other nights when we are dead will pass . . .'
Perhaps I misconstrue you: you mean only,
'How deathly pale my face looks in that glass . . .'
You say: 'We sit and talk, of things important . . .
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Koran: wealth and sons, and made you a numerous band.
'If ye do well, ye will do well to your own souls; and if ye do ill,
it is against them!
'And when the threat for the last came- to harm your faces and to
enter the mosque as they entered it the first time, and to destroy
what they had got the upper-hand over with utter destruction.'
It may be that thy Lord will have mercy on you;- if ye return we
will return, and we have made hell a prison for the misbelievers.
Verily, this Koran guides to the straightest path, and gives the
glad tidings to the believers who do aright that for them is a great
hire; and that for those who believe not in the hereafter, we have
The Koran |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lady Susan by Jane Austen: excellent spirits, and seemed eager to show at once by ever possible
attention to her brother and sister her sense of their kindness, and her
pleasure in their society. Frederica was no more altered than Lady Susan;
the same restrained manners, the same timid look in the presence of her
mother as heretofore, assured her aunt of her situation being
uncomfortable, and confirmed her in the plan of altering it. No unkindness,
however, on the part of Lady Susan appeared. Persecution on the subject of
Sir James was entirely at an end; his name merely mentioned to say that he
was not in London; and indeed, in all her conversation, she was solicitous
only for the welfare and improvement of her daughter, acknowledging, in
terms of grateful delight, that Frederica was now growing every day more
Lady Susan |
