| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: Raskolnikoff is easily the greatest book I have read in ten years;
I am glad you took to it. Many find it dull: Henry James could
not finish it: all I can say is, it nearly finished me. It was
like having an illness. James did not care for it because the
character of Raskolnikoff was not objective; and at that I divined
a great gulf between us, and, on further reflection, the existence
of a certain impotence in many minds of to-day, which prevents them
from living IN a book or a character, and keeps them standing afar
off, spectators of a puppet show. To such I suppose the book may
seem empty in the centre; to the others it is a room, a house of
life, into which they themselves enter, and are tortured and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Proposed Roads To Freedom by Bertrand Russell: has a small income from investments, just sufficient
to keep him from actual want, almost always prefers
to find some paid work in order to be able to afford
luxuries. So it would be, presumably, in such a
community as we are imagining. At the same time, the
man who felt a vocation for some unrecognized work
of art or science or thought would be free to follow his
desire, provided he were willing to ``scorn delights
and live laborious days.'' And the comparatively
small number of men with an invincible horror of
work--the sort of men who now become tramps--
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Collection of Beatrix Potter by Beatrix Potter: hole in the middle with a fork to
let out the steam--Oh I do wish I
could eat my own pie, instead of a
pie made of mouse!"
Duchess considered and considered
and read Ribby' s letter again--
"A pink and white pie-dish-and
YOU shall eat it all. 'You' means
me--then Ribby is not going to
even taste the pie herself? A pink
and white pie-dish! Ribby is sure
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