The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young: themselves knew about that law--for the good of the birds. But no
little girl cared to disobey that law of their own that nobody but
themselves knew about, for if one had--how dreadful it would have
been--no little girl would have played with her until--oh, so long,
so long--until she might at last have been forgiven!
So all the little brown crumbs that the tiny little girls did drop,
why the tiny little brown birds did pick up,--and they never said
whether they liked caraway seeds or not!
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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 H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: How wond'rous in my sight it seem'd to mark
A thing, albeit steadfast in itself,
Yet in its imag'd semblance mutable.
Full of amaze, and joyous, while my soul
Fed on the viand, whereof still desire
Grows with satiety, the other three
With gesture, that declar'd a loftier line,
Advanc'd: to their own carol on they came
Dancing in festive ring angelical.
"Turn, Beatrice!" was their song: "O turn
Thy saintly sight on this thy faithful one,
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: mother, bearing her daughter's last letter. Amid the mother's moans, a
doctor certified to death by asphyxia, through the injection of black
blood into the pulmonary system,--which settled the matter. The
inquest over, and the certificates signed, by six o'clock the same
evening authority was given to bury the grisette. The rector of the
parish, however, refused to receive her into the church or to pray for
her. Ida Gruget was therefore wrapped in a shroud by an old peasant-
woman, put into a common pine-coffin, and carried to the village
cemetery by four men, followed by a few inquisitive peasant-women, who
talked about the death with wonder mingled with some pity.
The widow Gruget was charitably taken in by an old lady who prevented
Ferragus |