| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Chinese Boy and Girl by Isaac Taylor Headland: additions made by the various persons through whose hands,
--or should we say, through whose mouths they pass.
When an American or English child hears how a certain
benevolent dame found no bone in her cupboard to satisfy
the cravings of her hungry dog, its feelings of compassion
are stirred up to ask: "And then what? Didn't she get
any meat? Did the dog die?" and the nurse is compelled
to make another verse to satisfy the curiosity of the child
and bring both the dame and the dog out of the dilemma in
which they have been left. This is what happened in the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: inclination to sleep; so I sat down in my chair, and lighted my
lamp, for it began to be dark. Now, as the apprehension of the
return of my distemper terrified me very much, it occurred to my
thought that the Brazilians take no physic but their tobacco for
almost all distempers, and I had a piece of a roll of tobacco in
one of the chests, which was quite cured, and some also that was
green, and not quite cured.
I went, directed by Heaven no doubt; for in this chest I found a
cure both for soul and body. I opened the chest, and found what I
looked for, the tobacco; and as the few books I had saved lay there
too, I took out one of the Bibles which I mentioned before, and
Robinson Crusoe |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tao Teh King by Lao-tze: profitable adaptation, and what has not that for (actual) usefulness.
12. 1. Colour's five hues from th' eyes their sight will take;
Music's five notes the ears as deaf can make;
The flavours five deprive the mouth of taste;
The chariot course, and the wild hunting waste
Make mad the mind; and objects rare and strange,
Sought for, men's conduct will to evil change.
2. Therefore the sage seeks to satisfy (the craving of) the belly, and
not the (insatiable longing of the) eyes. He puts from him the
latter, and prefers to seek the former.
13. 1. Favour and disgrace would seem equally to be feared; honour and
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