| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: The comparison between a present which disappoints man's secret wishes
and a future which may realize them, is an inexhaustible source of
sadness or of placid content.
Thus, it is almost impossible not to feel a certain tender sensibility
over a picture of Flemish life, if the accessories are clearly given.
Why so? Perhaps, among other forms of existence, it offers the best
conclusion to man's uncertainties. It has its social festivities, its
family ties, and the easy affluence which proves the stability of its
comfortable well-being; it does not lack repose amounting almost to
beatitude; but, above all, it expresses the calm monotony of a frankly
sensuous happiness, where enjoyment stifles desire by anticipating it.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Rewards and Fairies by Rudyard Kipling: Englishman. He's only a doctor, so I hope they won't think him
worth exchanging. My uncle captured him last year in the
FERDINAND privateer, off Belle Isle, and he cured my uncle of a
r-r-raging toothache. Of course, after that we couldn't let him lie
among the common French prisoners at Rye, and so he stays with
us. He's of very old family - a Breton, which is nearly next door
to being a true Briton, my father says - and he wears his hair
clubbed - not powdered. Much more becoming, don't you think?'
'I don't know what you're -' Una began, but Puck, the other
side of the pail, winked, and she went on with her milking.
'He's going to be a great French physician when the war is over.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them
in reading valueless books; and that valuable books should, in a
civilized country, be within the reach of every one, printed in
excellent form, for a just price; but not in any vile, vulgar, or,
by reason of smallness of type, physically injurious form, at a vile
price. For we none of us need many books, and those which we need
ought to be clearly printed, on the best paper, and strongly bound.
And though we are, indeed, now, a wretched and poverty-struck
nation, and hardly able to keep soul and body together, still, as no
person in decent circumstances would put on his table confessedly
bad wine, or bad meat, without being ashamed, so he need not have on
|
