| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Flower Fables by Louisa May Alcott: and the Queen placed a flower crown, with a gentle smile, upon the
Fairy's head, saying,--
"The little bud's lesson shall teach us how sad a thing is pride,
and that humility alone can bring true happiness to flower and Fairy.
You shall come next, Zephyr."
And the little Fairy, who lay rocking to and fro upon a fluttering
vine-leaf, thus began her story:--
"As I lay resting in the bosom of a cowslip that bent above the brook,
a little wind, tired of play, told me this tale of
LILY-BELL AND THISTLEDOWN.
ONCE upon a time, two little Fairies went out into the world, to
Flower Fables |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: of his previous life she should have ascertained only what he had
judged good to communicate. There were passages it was quite
conceivable that even in moments of the tenderest expansion he
should have withheld. Of many facts in the career of a man so in
the eye of the world there was of course a common knowledge; but
this lady lived apart from public affairs, and the only time
perfectly clear to her would have been the time following the dawn
of her own drama. A man in her place would have "looked up" the
past - would even have consulted old newspapers. It remained
remarkable indeed that in her long contact with the partner of her
retrospect no accident had lighted a train; but there was no
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu: disturb that fixed contemplation, as of Buddha on his
lotus-throne.
And along with this wisdom, as of age or of the age of a race,
there was what I can hardly call less than an agony of sensation.
Pain or pleasure transported her, and the whole of pain or
pleasure might be held in a flower's cup or the imagined frown of
a friend. It was never found in those things which to others
seemed things of importance. At the age of twelve she passed the
Matriculation of the Madras University, and awoke to find herself
famous throughout India. "Honestly," she said to me, "I was not
pleased; such things did not appeal to me." But here, in a
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