| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: I should doubtless have much to rob me of it, were I to publish the
principles of my physics: for although they are almost all so evident that
to assent to them no more is needed than simply to understand them, and
although there is not one of them of which I do not expect to be able to
give demonstration, yet, as it is impossible that they can be in
accordance with all the diverse opinions of others, I foresee that I
should frequently be turned aside from my grand design, on occasion of the
opposition which they would be sure to awaken.
It may be said, that these oppositions would be useful both in making me
aware of my errors, and, if my speculations contain anything of value, in
bringing others to a fuller understanding of it; and still farther, as
Reason Discourse |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: of getting a shift of clothes, the artificers began with all
speed to work, so as to bring themselves into heat, while the
writer and his assistants kept as much as possible in motion.
Having remained more than an hour upon the rock, the boats
left it at half-past nine; and, after getting on board, the
writer recommended to the artificers, as the best mode of
getting into a state of comfort, to strip off their wet
clothes and go to bed for an hour or two. No further
inconveniency was felt, and no one seemed to complain of the
affection called `catching cold.'
[Friday, 18th Sept.]
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: profound sadness the implacable scene, which was all he had to look
upon. He cried aloud, to measure the solitude. His voice, lost in the
hollows of the hill, sounded faintly, and aroused no echo--the echo
was in his own heart. The Provencal was twenty-two years old:--he
loaded his carbine.
"There'll be time enough," he said to himself, laying on the ground
the weapon which alone could bring him deliverance.
Viewing alternately the dark expanse of the desert and the blue
expanse of the sky, the soldier dreamed of France--he smelled with
delight the gutters of Paris--he remembered the towns through which he
had passed, the faces of his comrades, the most minute details of his
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