| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Bucolics by Virgil: A cackling goose among melodious swans.
MOERIS
'Twas in my thought to do so, Lycidas;
Even now was I revolving silently
If this I could recall- no paltry song:
"Come, Galatea, what pleasure is 't to play
Amid the waves? Here glows the Spring, here earth
Beside the streams pours forth a thousand flowers;
Here the white poplar bends above the cave,
And the lithe vine weaves shadowy covert: come,
Leave the mad waves to beat upon the shore."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: MARCAS! say this two-syllabled name again and again; do you not feel
as if it had some sinister meaning? Does it not seem to you that its
owner must be doomed to martyrdom? Though foreign, savage, the name
has a right to be handed down to posterity; it is well constructed,
easily pronounced, and has the brevity that beseems a famous name. Is
it not pleasant as well as odd? But does it not sound unfinished?
I will not take it upon myself to assert that names have no influence
on the destiny of men. There is a certain secret and inexplicable
concord or a visible discord between the events of a man's life and
his name which is truly surprising; often some remote but very real
correlation is revealed. Our globe is round; everything is linked to
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather: in their best black dresses; spare, alert old women with brown,
dark-veined hands; and several of almost heroic frame, not less
massive than old Mrs. Ericson herself. Few of them wore glasses,
and old Mrs. Svendsen, a Danish woman, who was quite bald, wore the
only cap among them. Mrs. Oleson, who had twelve big
grandchildren, could still show two braids of yellow hair as thick
as her own wrists. Among all these grandmothers there were more
brown heads than white. They all had a pleased, prosperous air, as
if they were more than satisfied with themselves and with life.
Nils, leaning against Hilda's lemonade stand, watched them
as they sat chattering in four languages, their fingers never
The Troll Garden and Selected Stories |
