| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Vailima Letters by Robert Louis Stevenson: anything to spoil, which I am far from saying. I'm as sick
of the thing as ever any one can be; it's a rudderless hulk;
it's a pagoda, and you can just feel - or I can feel - that
it might have been a pleasant story, if it had been only
blessed at baptism.
Our politics have gone on fairly well, but the result is
still doubtful.
SEPT. 10TH.
I know I have something else to say to you, but unfortunately
I awoke this morning with collywobbles, and had to take a
small dose of laudanum with the usual consequences of dry
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: of wisdom, sacrifice for knowledge, heroism of the truthful--
there is something in them that makes one's heart swell with
pride. But we anchorites and marmots have long ago persuaded
ourselves in all the secrecy of an anchorite's conscience, that
this worthy parade of verbiage also belongs to the old false
adornment, frippery, and gold-dust of unconscious human vanity,
and that even under such flattering colour and repainting, the
terrible original text HOMO NATURA must again be recognized. In
effect, to translate man back again into nature; to master the
many vain and visionary interpretations and subordinate meanings
which have hitherto been scratched and daubed over the eternal
Beyond Good and Evil |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: artist's eye? Have I not, for ten days past, admired, examined,
devoured, thy perfections? None but a woman can have this soft and
beautifully rounded arm, these graceful outlines. Ah! you seek
compliments!'
"She smiled sadly, and murmured:
" 'Fatal beauty!'
"She raised her eyes to the sky. At that moment, there was in her eyes
an indefinable expression of horror, so startling, so intense, that
Sarrasine shuddered.
" 'Signor Frenchman,' she continued, 'forget forever a moment's
madness. I esteem you, but as for love, do not ask me for that; that
|
