| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: that I lay staring at through the window warmed and changed, the
Doctor continued working hard over his patient in the next room.
Only a word here and there was distinct; but it was plain from
the Virginian's fewer remarks that the sin in his belly was
alarming him less. Yes, they made this time long. But it proved,
indeed, the last one. And though some sort of catastrophe was
bound to fall upon us, it was myself who precipitated the thing
that did happen.
Day was wholly come. I looked at my own watch, and it was six. I
had been about seven hours in my bed, and the Doctor had been
about seven hours out of his. The door opened, and he came in
The Virginian |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: Wives every day, in the deep streams, but, strange!
As if the honey of sea-love delight
Could not suffice his ranging appetite,
Goes courting she-goats on the grassy shore,
Horning their husbands that had horns before.
And the same author writes concerning the Cantharus, that which you
shall also hear in his own words:
But, contrary, the constant Cantharus
Is ever constant to his faithful spouse
In nuptial duties, spending his chaste life.
Never loves any but his own dear wife.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: against the levee, side by side,--like great weary swans. But
the miniature steamboat on which you engage passage to the Gulf
never lingers long in the Mississippi: she crosses the river,
slips into some canal-mouth, labors along the artificial channel
awhile, and then leaves it with a scream of joy, to puff her free
way down many a league of heavily shadowed bayou. Perhaps
thereafter she may bear you through the immense silence of
drenched rice-fields, where the yellow-green level is broken at
long intervals by the black silhouette of some irrigating
machine;--but, whichever of the five different routes be pursued,
you will find yourself more than once floating through sombre
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