| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: monk placed food from the monastery.
And so Sergius became a hermit.
III
At Carnival time, in the sixth year of Sergius's life at the
hermitage, a merry company of rich people, men and women from a
neighbouring town, made up a troyka-party, after a meal of
carnival-pancakes and wine. The company consisted of two
lawyers, a wealthy landowner, an officer, and four ladies. One
lady was the officer's wife, another the wife of the landowner,
the third his sister--a young girl--and the fourth a divorcee,
beautiful, rich, and eccentric, who amazed and shocked the town
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: of the affections in domestic life. George seldom spoke in my
uncle's company, except to utter a short, judicious question, or
to make a pertinent remark, with all due deference to his superior
judgment; so that my uncle seldom left his company without observing,
that the young man had more in him than people supposed.
In this opinion he was not singular; yet, believe me, and I
am not swayed by resentment, these speeches so justly poized, this
silent deference, when the animal spirits of other young people
were throwing off youthful ebullitions, were not the effect of
thought or humility, but sheer barrenness of mind, and want of
imagination. A colt of mettle will curvet and shew his paces.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: Although I am away off here in a Swedish village [1] and
those stakes did not stand till the snow came, I can see them
today as plainly as ever; and whenever I think of an English
monarch his stakes rise before me of their own accord and I
notice the large or small space which he takes up on our road.
Are your kings spaced off in your mind? When you think of
Richard III. and of James II. do the durations of their reigns
seem about alike to you? It isn't so to me; I always notice that
there's a foot's difference. When you think of Henry III. do you
see a great long stretch of straight road? I do; and just at the
end where it joins on to Edward I. I always see a small pear-bush
What is Man? |
