| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: feeling that comes over us, almost in spite of ourselves, under the
obscure vault of a church. My eyes, full of the bright sunshine,
accustomed themselves gradually to this artificial night.
"Monsieur is your old school-friend," she said to Louis.
He made no reply. At last I could see him, and it was one of those
spectacles that are stamped on the memory for ever. He was standing,
his elbows resting on the cornice of the low wainscot, which threw his
body forward, so that it seemed bowed under the weight of his bent
head. His hair was as long as a woman's, falling over his shoulders
and hanging about his face, giving him a resemblance to the busts of
the great men of the time of Louis XIV. His face was perfectly white.
Louis Lambert |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: a few steps from the edge of the cliff, the purple bird came
fluttering towards him, crying, "Peep, peep, pe--weep!" and
using all the art it could to persuade him to go no farther.
"What mean you, little bird?" cried Ulysses. "You are arrayed
like a king in purple and gold, and wear a golden crown upon
your head. Is it because I too am a king, that you desire so
earnestly to speak with me? If you can talk in human language,
say what you would have me do."
"Peep!" answered the purple bird, very dolorously. "Peep, peep,
pe--we--e!"
Certainly there lay some heavy anguish at the little bird's
Tanglewood Tales |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: active, which is pleasanter than any happiness until you are tired of
it. That is why it is necessary to happiness that one should be
tired. Music after dinner is pleasant: music before breakfast is so
unpleasant as to be clearly unnatural. To people who are not
overworked holidays are a nuisance. To people who are, and who can
afford them, they are a troublesome necessity. A perpetual holiday is
a good working definition of hell.
The Horror of the Perpetual Holiday
It will be said here that, on the contrary, heaven is always conceived
as a perpetual holiday, and that whoever is not born to an independent
income is striving for one or longing for one because it gives
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