| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Prufrock/Other Observations by T. S. Eliot: And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?
And I have known the arms already, known them all--
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
Prufrock/Other Observations |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: commandment to mention, and have recently dined upon cold veal! As
for you (who probably had some ambitions), I hear of you living at
Dover, in lodgings, like the beasts of the field. But in heaven,
when we get there, we shall have a good time, and see some real
carnage. For heaven is - must be - that great Kingdom of
Antinomia, which Lamb saw dimly adumbrated in the COUNTRY WIFE,
where the worm which never dies (the conscience) peacefully
expires, and the sinner lies down beside the Ten Commandments.
Till then, here a sheer hulk lies poor Tom Bowling, with neither
health nor vice for anything more spirited than procrastination,
which I may well call the Consolation Stakes of Wickedness; and by
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: I had been downright honest with myself, I would have seen very
plainly in my heart that I did but half fancy being committed this
way to so long a voyage, without once laying my eyes on the man who
was to be the absolute dictator of it, so soon as the ship sailed out
upon the open sea. But when a man suspects any wrong, it sometimes
happens that if he be already involved in the matter, he insensibly
strives to cover up his suspicions even from himself. And much this
way it was with me. I said nothing, and tried to think nothing.
At last it was given out that some time next day the ship would
certainly sail. So next morning, Queequeg and I took a very early
start.
Moby Dick |
