| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Dreams & Dust by Don Marquis: The wavering hours that drift like any cloud
At whim of winds or fortunate or dire,--
The feeble shapes that any chance expells;
Their wisdom useless, lacking the blood that swells
The tensed vein: the hot, swift tide that stings
With life. Ah, wise! but naked to the slings
Of fate, and plagued of youthful memory!
A cracked voice broke upon my pityings:
"Lo, I am Age; I bid thee follow me!"
Ah, Youth! we dallied by the babbling wells
Where April all her lyric secret tells;--
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane: t'ousand cases! What deh blazes use is dem?"
Evenings during the week he took her to see plays in which the
brain-clutching heroine was rescued from the palatial home of her
guardian, who is cruelly after her bonds, by the hero with the
beautiful sentiments. The latter spent most of his time out at
soak in pale-green snow storms, busy with a nickel-plated revolver,
rescuing aged strangers from villains.
Maggie lost herself in sympathy with the wanderers swooning in
snow storms beneath happy-hued church windows. And a choir within
singing "Joy to the World." To Maggie and the rest of the audience
this was transcendental realism. Joy always within, and they, like
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: the Throne in threatening the Tiara, allowed the siege of Rome and
held Pope Clement VII. in prison! This same Clement, who had no
bitterer enemy than Charles V., courted him in order to make
Alessandro de' Medici ruler of Florence, and obtained his favorite
daughter for that bastard. No sooner was Alessandro established than
he, conjointly with Clement VII., endeavored to injure Charles V. by
allying himself with Francois I., king of France, by means of
Catherine de' Medici; and both of them promised to assist Francois in
reconquering Italy. Lorenzino de' Medici made himself the companion of
Alessandro's debaucheries for the express purpose of finding an
opportunity to kill him. Filippo Strozzi, one of the great minds of
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