| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Bucolics by Virgil: There, Meliboeus, I saw that youth to whom
Yearly for twice six days my altars smoke.
There instant answer gave he to my suit,
"Feed, as before, your kine, boys, rear your bulls."
MELIBOEUS
So in old age, you happy man, your fields
Will still be yours, and ample for your need!
Though, with bare stones o'erspread, the pastures all
Be choked with rushy mire, your ewes with young
By no strange fodder will be tried, nor hurt
Through taint contagious of a neighbouring flock.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: motionless in the heart of these perils, because the boat is rocking
like a cradle, and you are pitched one way and the other, without the
slightest warning; and only by a certain self-adjusting buoyancy and
simultaneousness of volition and action, can you escape being made a
Mazeppa of, and run away with where the all-seeing sun himself could
never pierce you out.
Again: as the profound calm which only apparently precedes and
prophesies of the storm, is perhaps more awful than the storm itself;
for, indeed, the calm is but the wrapper and envelope of the storm;
and contains it in itself, as the seemingly harmless rifle holds the
fatal powder, and the ball, and the explosion; so the graceful repose
Moby Dick |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Poor and Proud by Oliver Optic: but at the first turn he stopped, and begged her not to mention
that he had shut the door upon her.
"I don't know," said Katy. "I gave you no reason to treat me in
that ugly manner."
"You didn't, but, you see, I thought you was some beggar, coming
to disturb his honor."
"Do I look like a beggar?" asked Katy.
"Indeed you don't; that was a bad blunder of mine. If you mention
it, I shall lose my place."
"Well, I won't say a word then; but I hope you will learn better
manners next time."
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