| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: supposed, in strict keeping with this character of phantasm. We
pored together over such works as the Ververt et Chartreuse
of Gresset; the Belphegor of Machiavelli; the Heaven and
Hell of Swedenborg; the Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm by
Holberg; the Chiromancy of Robert Flud, of Jean D'Indagine,
and of De la Chambre; the Journey into the Blue Distance of
Tieck; and the City of the Sun by Campanella. One favourite
volume was a small octavo edition of the Directorium
Inquisitorum, by the Dominican Eymeric de Gironne; and there
were passages in Pomponius Mela, about the old African Satyrs
and OEgipans, over which Usher would sit dreaming for hours. His
The Fall of the House of Usher |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Stories From the Old Attic by Robert Harris: barrow and looked for all the world like gardeners, the young man
interrupted them with the slightly exasperated question, "Excuse me,
but what is that tree doing there, anyway?"
Now it so happens that these two men were not gardeners at all. They
were, in fact, tenured professors of philosophy, the very subject the
young man was struggling to understand. They turned to him at once
and condescended to admit him to their conversation.
"Well," said the first philosopher, pushing his glasses up the bridge
of his nose, "see here. This is a tree." And pointing to the tree
the young man was already too-intimately familiar with, concluded with
apparent satisfaction, "As Circumplexius has said in the fourth book
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: of various kinds, and plates with slices of French bread.
The men stood round the strong-smelling spirits and salt
delicacies, and the discussion of the Russification of Poland
between Koznishev, Karenin, and Pestsov died down in anticipation
of dinner.
Sergey Ivanovitch was unequaled in his skill in winding up the
most heated and serious argument by some unexpected pinch of
Attic salt that changed the disposition of his opponent. He did
this now.
Alexey Alexandrovitch had been maintaining that the Russification
of Poland could only be accomplished as a result of larger
Anna Karenina |
