| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: everything that would make a display. But we have never had any
money, Miss Innes; that must have been why mother rented this
house. My stepfather pays out bills. It's the most maddening,
humiliating existence in the world. I would love honest poverty
better."
"Never mind," I said; "when you and Halsey are married you
can be as honest as you like, and you will certainly be poor."
Halsey came to the door at that moment and I could hear him
coaxing Liddy for admission to the sick room.
"Shall I bring him in?" I asked Louise, uncertain what to do.
The girl seemed to shrink back among her pillows at the sound of
The Circular Staircase |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: from Novastoshnah, all ledges and rock and gulls' nests, where the
walrus herded by themselves.
He landed close to old Sea Vitch--the big, ugly, bloated,
pimpled, fat-necked, long-tusked walrus of the North Pacific, who
has no manners except when he is asleep--as he was then, with
his hind flippers half in and half out of the surf.
"Wake up!" barked Kotick, for the gulls were making a great
noise.
"Hah! Ho! Hmph! What's that?" said Sea Vitch, and he struck
the next walrus a blow with his tusks and waked him up, and the
next struck the next, and so on till they were all awake and
The Jungle Book |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: to the fruits of action, one may mix in the world with
equanimity. I quoted in a former lecture Saint Augustine's
antinomian saying: If you only love God enough, you may safely
follow all your inclinations. "He needs no devotional
practices," is one of Ramakrishna's maxims, "whose heart is moved
to tears at the mere mention of the name of <354> Hari."[217]
And the Buddha, in pointing out what he called "the middle way"
to his disciples, told them to abstain from both extremes,
excessive mortification being as unreal and unworthy as mere
desire and pleasure. The only perfect life, he said, is that of
inner wisdom, which makes one thing as indifferent to us as
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