| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Anthem by Ayn Rand: our food; we find water and fruit in the
forest. At night, we choose a clearing, and
we build a ring of fires around it. We sleep
in the midst of that ring, and the beasts
dare not attack us. We can see their eyes,
green and yellow as coals, watching us from
the tree branches beyond. The fires smoulder
as a crown of jewels around us, and smoke
stands still in the air, in columns made blue
by the moonlight. We sleep together in the
midst of the ring, the arms of the Golden
Anthem |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: inverted pictures presented by his retina, the result, at all events,
is undeniable. The world stands reversed, and, taking for granted
his own uprightness, the stranger unhesitatingly imputes to them an
obliquity of vision, a state of mind outwardly typified by the
cat-like obliqueness of their eyes.
If the inversion be not precisely of the kind he expected, it is
none the less striking, and impressibly more real. If personal
experience has definitely convinced him that the inhabitants of that
under side of our planet do not adhere to it head downwards, like
flies on a ceiling,--his early a priori deduction,--they still
appear quite as antipodal, mentally considered. Intellectually,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lemorne Versus Huell by Elizabeth Drew Stoddard: Eliza.
"The sly, methodical dogs! but I shall beat Lemorne yet!"
"How will you amuse yourself then, aunt?"
"I'll adopt some boys to inherit what I shall save from his
clutches."
The bath fatigued her so she remained in her room for the rest
of the day; but she kept me busy with a hundred trifles. I wrote
for her, computed interest, studied out bills of fare, till four
o'clock came, and with it a fog. Nevertheless I must ride on the
Avenue, and the carriage was ordered.
"Wear your silk, Margaret; it will just about last your visit
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