| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche: Robbing, skulking, lying--roving:--
Or unto eagles like which fixedly,
Long adown the precipice look,
Adown THEIR precipice:--
Oh, how they whirl down now,
Thereunder, therein,
To ever deeper profoundness whirling!--
Then,
Sudden,
With aim aright,
With quivering flight,
Thus Spake Zarathustra |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Schoolmistress and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov: indignant, for some unknown reason jumps up from his seat and
runs out of the room. Malahin shrugs his shoulders, and goes out
to look for someone else to speak to.
From boredom or from a desire to put the finishing stroke to a
busy day, or simply that a window with the inscription
"Telegraph! " on it catches his eye, he goes to the window and
expresses a desire to send off a telegram. Taking up a pen, he
thinks for a moment, and writes on a blue form: "Urgent. Traffic
Manager. Eight vans of live stock. Delayed at every station.
Kindly send an express number. Reply paid. Malahin."
Having sent off the telegram, he goes back to the
The Schoolmistress and Other Stories |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: and stockings), linen of dazzling whiteness, glittering glass,
silver dishes, a great bowl of fruit, and the reddest of roses.
The room was invaded by beautiful women and dashing young men,
laughing and talking together. The men were dressed more or less
after the period in which the play was written; the women were not.
I saw no inconsistency. Their talk seemed to open to one
the brilliant world in which they lived; every sentence made
one older and wiser, every pleasantry enlarged one's horizon.
One could experience excess and satiety without the inconvenience
of learning what to do with one's hands in a drawing-room!
When the characters all spoke at once and I missed some
My Antonia |
