| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Professor by Charlotte Bronte: looking towards the window, I saw it all blue; the thunder-clouds
were broken and scattered, and the setting August sun sent a
gleam like the reflection of rubies through the lattice. I got
up; I drew on my gloves.
"You have not yet found another situation to supply the place of
that from which you were dismissed by Mdlle. Reuter?"
"No, monsieur; I have made inquiries everywhere, but they all ask
me for references; and to speak truth, I do not like to apply to
the directress, because I consider she acted neither justly nor
honourably towards me; she used underhand means to set my pupils
against me, and thereby render me unhappy while I held my place
The Professor |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Sir John Mandeville: be natural balm anon it will take and beclippe the milk. Or put a
drop of balm in clear water in a cup of silver or in a clear basin,
stir it well with the clear water; and if the balm be fine and of
his own kind, the water shall never trouble; and if the balm be
sophisticate, that is to say counterfeited, the water shall become
anon trouble; and also if the balm be fine it shall fall to the
bottom of the vessel, as though it were quicksilver, for the fine
balm is more heavy twice than is the balm that is sophisticate and
counterfeited. Now I have spoken of balm.
And now also I shall speak of another thing that is beyond Babylon,
above the flood of the Nile, toward the desert between Africa and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: palpably futile, for in desire alone lies all the ill. Quench the
desire, and the deeds will die of inanition. Man himself is sole
cause of his own misery. Get rid, then, said the Buddha, of these
passions, these strivings for the sake of self, that hold the true
soul a prisoner. They have to do with things which we know are
transitory: how can they be immortal themselves? We recognize them
as subject to our will; they are, then, not the I.
As a man, he taught, becomes conscious that he himself is something
distinct from his body, so, if he reflect and ponder, he will come
to see that in like manner his appetites, ambitions, hopes, are
really extrinsic to the spirit proper. Neither heart nor head is
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