| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: hope; in the evening applauded his own diligence; and in the night
slept soundly after his fatigue. He met a thousand amusements,
which beguiled his labour and diversified his thoughts. He
discerned the various instincts of animals and properties of
plants, and found the place replete with wonders, of which he
proposed to solace himself with the contemplation if he should
never be able to accomplish his flight - rejoicing that his
endeavours, though yet unsuccessful, had supplied him with a source
of inexhaustible inquiry. But his original curiosity was not yet
abated; he resolved to obtain some knowledge of the ways of men.
His wish still continued, but his hope grew less. He ceased to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: most things rather wrong. It hadn't been at Rome--it had been at
Naples; and it hadn't been eight years before--it had been more
nearly ten. She hadn't been, either, with her uncle and aunt, but
with her mother and brother; in addition to which it was not with
the Pembles HE had been, but with the Boyers, coming down in their
company from Rome--a point on which she insisted, a little to his
confusion, and as to which she had her evidence in hand. The
Boyers she had known, but didn't know the Pembles, though she had
heard of them, and it was the people he was with who had made them
acquainted. The incident of the thunderstorm that had raged round
them with such violence as to drive them for refuge into an
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: The beauties of youth are frail, but this was a jewel of age.
Life, that delights in the brave, gave it himself for a gage.
Fair was the crown to behold, and beauty its poorest part -
At once the scar of the wound and the order pinned on the heart.
The beauties of man are frail, and the silver lies in the dust,
And the queen that we call to mind sleeps with the brave and the just;
Sleeps with the weary at length; but, honoured and ever fair,
Shines in the eye of the mind the crown of the silver hair.
Honolulu.
XXXIII - TO MY WIFE (A Fragment)
LONG must elapse ere you behold again
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