| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: cousins of practical views, who have dug up the flower-beds and
planted cabbages where roses grew; and though through all the years
since my father's death I have held my head so high that it hurt,
and loftily refused to listen to their repeated suggestions that I
should revisit my old home, something in the sad listlessness of
the November days sent my spirit back to old times with a persistency
that would not be set aside, and I woke from my musings surprised
to find myself sick with longing. <61>
It is foolish but natural to quarrel with one's cousins,
and especially foolish and natural when they have done nothing,
and are mere victims of chance. Is it their fault that my not being a boy
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare: * * * * * *
Paler for sorrow than her milk-white dove,
For Adon's sake, a youngster proud and wild;
Her stand she takes upon a steep-up hill:
Anon Adonis comes with horn and hounds;
She, silly queen, with more than love's good will,
Forbade the boy he should not pass those grounds:
'Once,' quoth she, 'did I see a fair sweet youth
Here in these brakes deep-wounded with a boar,
Deep in the thigh, a spectacle of ruth!
See, in my thigh,' quoth she, 'here was the sore.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: Farewell. A famous shove this to end a good passage with; and yet,
somehow, one could not muster upon one's lips the smile of a
courtier's gratitude. This favour was dispensed to you from under
an overbearing scowl, which is the true expression of the great
autocrat when he has made up his mind to give a battering to some
ships and to hunt certain others home in one breath of cruelty and
benevolence, equally distracting.
"No, sir. Can't see very far."
Thus would the mate's voice repeat the thought of the master, both
gazing ahead, while under their feet the ship rushes at some twelve
knots in the direction of the lee shore; and only a couple of miles
The Mirror of the Sea |
