| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: The peony's dark unfolding ball.
The golden-chaliced crocus burns;
The long narcissus-blades appear;
The cone-beaked hyacinth returns,
And lights her blue-flamed chandelier.
The willow's whistling lashes, wrung
By the wild winds of gusty March,
With sallow leaflets lightly strung,
Are swaying by the tufted larch.
The elms have robed their slender spray
With full-blown flower and embryo leaf;
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: themselves,--it is so wide. Suppose I had asked you, for instance,
to seek for Shakespeare's opinion, instead of Milton's on this
matter of Church authority?--or for Dante's? Have any of you, at
this instant, the least idea what either thought about it? Have you
ever balanced the scene with the bishops in 'Richard III.' against
the character of Cranmer? the description of St. Francis and St.
Dominic against that of him who made Virgil wonder to gaze upon
him,--"disteso, tanto vilmente, nell' eterno esilio;" or of him whom
Dante stood beside, "come 'l frate che confessa lo perfido
assassin?" {9} Shakespeare and Alighieri knew men better than most
of us, I presume! They were both in the midst of the main struggle
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tattine by Ruth Ogden [Mrs. Charles W. Ide]: way to the back piazza, where "everything" was lying in a row. There was the
maple sugar itself, two pounds of it on a plate, two large kitchen spoons, a
china cup, two sheets of brown wrapping-paper, two or three newspapers, a box
of matches, a pail of clear spring water, a hammer, an ice-pick, and last, and
most important of all, a granite-ware kettle.
"Now if you'll carry these," explained Tattine, "I'll run and tell Philip to
bring the ice," so Rudolph and Mabel "loaded up" and marched down to the camp,
and Tattine disappeared in the direction of the ice-house. The camp was not
far away, and consisted of a cosy little "A" tent, a hammock hung between two
young chestnuts, and a fire-place made of a circle of stones on the ground,
with a crane hanging above it. The crane was quite an elaborate contrivance,
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