The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: Behold me pitched neck-and-crop from twenty days of the high seas
into the whirl of California, deprived of any guidance, and left
to draw my own conclusions. Protect me from the wrath of an
outraged community if these letters be ever read by American
eyes! San Francisco is a mad city--inhabited for the most part
by perfectly insane people, whose women are of a remarkable
beauty.
When the "City of Pekin" steamed through the Golden Gate, I saw
with great joy that the block-house which guarded the mouth of
the "finest harbor in the world, sir," could be silenced by two
gunboats from Hong Kong with safety, comfort, and despatch.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: Between the well and foot of the high, hard bank,
And has distinct in valleys ten its bottom.
As where for the protection of the walls
Many and many moats surround the castles,
The part in which they are a figure forms,
Just such an image those presented there;
And as about such strongholds from their gates
Unto the outer bank are little bridges,
So from the precipice's base did crags
Project, which intersected dikes and moats,
Unto the well that truncates and collects them.
 The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield:
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