| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Heart of the West by O. Henry: women did it. How old is the old man now?" asked the speaker, turning
to Bildad Rose.
"I should say about sixty-five."
"All right. He conducted his hermit shop here for twenty years. Say he
was twenty-five when he took off his hat at the gate. That leaves
twenty years for him to account for, or else be docked. Where did he
spend that ten and two fives? I'll give you my idea. Up for bigamy.
Say there was the fat blonde in Saint Jo, and the panatela brunette at
Skillet Ridge, and the gold tooth down in the Kaw valley. Redruth gets
his cases mixed, and they send him up the road. He gets out after they
are through with him, and says: 'Any line for me except the crinoline.
Heart of the West |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche: individuals; verily, the individual himself is still the latest creation.
Peoples once hung over them tables of the good. Love which would rule and
love which would obey, created for themselves such tables.
Older is the pleasure in the herd than the pleasure in the ego: and as
long as the good conscience is for the herd, the bad conscience only saith:
ego.
Verily, the crafty ego, the loveless one, that seeketh its advantage in the
advantage of many--it is not the origin of the herd, but its ruin.
Loving ones, was it always, and creating ones, that created good and bad.
Fire of love gloweth in the names of all the virtues, and fire of wrath.
Many lands saw Zarathustra, and many peoples: no greater power did
Thus Spake Zarathustra |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy: Sixteen hours had passed. Knight was entering the ladies' boudoir
at The Crags, upon his return from attending the inquest touching
the death of Mrs. Jethway. Elfride was not in the apartment.
Mrs. Swancourt made a few inquiries concerning the verdict and
collateral circumstances. Then she said--
'The postman came this morning the minute after you left the
house. There was only one letter for you, and I have it here.'
She took a letter from the lid of her workbox, and handed it to
him. Knight took the missive abstractedly, but struck by its
appearance murmured a few words and left the room.
The letter was fastened with a black seal, and the handwriting in
A Pair of Blue Eyes |
