| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: The wood they hang till the smoke knows it well.
Many the precepts of the men of old
I can recount thee, so thou start not back,
And such slight cares to learn not weary thee.
And this among the first: thy threshing-floor
With ponderous roller must be levelled smooth,
And wrought by hand, and fixed with binding chalk,
Lest weeds arise, or dust a passage win
Splitting the surface, then a thousand plagues
Make sport of it: oft builds the tiny mouse
Her home, and plants her granary, underground,
Georgics |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: her birthday; she was twenty. As she happened to remember that,
another fancy floated up before her, oddly life-like: of the old
seat she made under the currant-bushes at home when she was a
child, and the plans she laid for herself, when she should be a
woman, sitting there,--how she would dig down into the middle of
the world, and find the kingdom of the griffins, or would go
after Mercy and Christiana in their pilgrimage. It was only a
little while ago since these things were more alive to her than
anything else in the world. The seat was under the
currant-bushes still. Very little time ago; but she was a woman
now,--and, look here! A chance ray of sunlight slanted in,
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll: "Thanks, no," he courteously replied. "It's not--exactly in my line,
you know. It's an excellent institution--for the poor. When I'm with
my own folk, I go, just to set them an example. But I'm not known here:
so I think I'll excuse myself sitting out a sermon. Country-preachers
are always so dull!"
Arthur was silent till we were out of hearing. Then he said to himself,
almost inaudibly, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name,
there am I in the midst of them."
"Yes," I assented: "no doubt that is the principle on which church-going
rests."
"And when he does go," he continued (our thoughts ran so much together,
Sylvie and Bruno |
