| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: out-coast of eternity, and slept in its calm. When, by long
degrees, the shock of outer life jarred and woke him, it was
feebly done: he came back reluctant, weak: the quiet clinging to
him, as if he had been drowned in Lethe, and had brought its
calming mist with him out of the shades.
The low chatter of voices, the occasional lifting of his head on
the pillow, the very soothing draught, came to him unreal at
first: parts only of the dull, lifeless pleasure. There was a
sharper memory pierced it sometimes, making him moan and try to
sleep,--a remembrance of great, cleaving pain, of falling
giddily, of owing life to some one, and being angry that he owed
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Aesop's Fables by Aesop: all the neighbours came around him, and he told them how he used
to come and visit his gold. "Did you ever take any of it out?"
asked one of them.
"Nay," said he, "I only came to look at it."
"Then come again and look at the hole," said a neighbour; "it
will do you just as much good."
Wealth unused might as well not exist.
The Fox and the Mosquitoes
A Fox after crossing a river got its tail entangled in a bush,
and could not move. A number of Mosquitoes seeing its plight
settled upon it and enjoyed a good meal undisturbed by its tail.
Aesop's Fables |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: must have soft carpets laid everywhere for the pleasure of playing
with Naqui. A bathroom, too, was built for her, everything to the end
that she might be more comfortable.
Shopkeepers, workmen, and manufacturers in Paris have a mysterious
knack of enlarging a hole in a man's purse. They cannot give the price
of anything upon inquiry; and as the paroxysm of longing cannot abide
delay, orders are given by the feeble light of an approximate estimate
of cost. The same people never send in the bills at once, but ply the
purchaser with furniture till his head spins. Everything is so pretty,
so charming; and every one is satisfied.
A few months later the obliging furniture dealers are metamorphosed,
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