| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde: and walk behind the oxen?
SECOND MAN. He being a very holy man does nothing. We are common
men and of no account. We toll all day long in the sun. Sometimes
the ground is very hard.
MYRRHINA. Do the birds of the air feed him? Do the jackals share
their booty with him?
FIRST MAN. Every evening we bring him food. We do not think that
the birds of the air feed him.
MYRRHINA. Why do ye feed him? What profit have ye in so doing?
SECOND MAN. He is a very holy man. One of the gods whom he has
offended has made him mad. We think he has offended the moon.
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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: In fashion as a knife the scales of bream,
Or any other fish that has them largest.
"O thou, that with thy fingers dost dismail thee,"
Began my Leader unto one of them,
"And makest of them pincers now and then,
Tell me if any Latian is with those
Who are herein; so may thy nails suffice thee
To all eternity unto this work."
"Latians are we, whom thou so wasted seest,
Both of us here," one weeping made reply;
"But who art thou, that questionest about us?"
The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Human Drift by Jack London: windward a short distance, seen only between the snow-squalls, was
a low rocky reef. It was this that inadequately protected us from
the whole Yellow Sea that thundered in upon us.
The Japanese crawled under a communal rice mat and went to sleep.
I joined them, and for several hours we dozed fitfully. Then a
sea deluged us out with icy water, and we found several inches of
snow on top the mat. The reef to windward was disappearing under
the rising tide, and moment by moment the seas broke more strongly
over the rocks. The fishermen studied the shore anxiously. So
did I, and with a sailor's eye, though I could see little chance
for a swimmer to gain that surf-hammered line of rocks. I made
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