| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: twice followed her thither; and the houseless, familyless old man
staggered off a vagabond in crape; his every woe unreverenced; his
grey head a scorn to flaxen curls!
Death seems the only desirable sequel for a career like this; but
Death is only a launching into the region of the strange Untried; it
is but the first salutation to the possibilities of the immense
Remote, the Wild, the Watery, the Unshored; therefore, to the
death-longing eyes of such men, who still have left in them some
interior compunctions against suicide, does the all-contributed and
all-receptive ocean alluringly spread forth his whole plain of
unimaginable, taking terrors, and wonderful, new-life adventures; and
Moby Dick |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost: connection with Manon.
"There only remained to me, therefore, the violent measures
which M. T---- had suggested. I now confined all my hopes to
them. They were questionless most uncertain; but they held out
to me, at least, a substantial consolation, in the certainty of
meeting death in the attempt, if unsuccessful. I left him,
begging that he would offer up his best wishes for my triumph;
and I thought only of finding some companions, to whom I might
communicate a portion of my own courage and determination.
"The first that occurred to me was the same guardsman whom I had
employed to arrest G---- M----. I had intended indeed to pass
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Poems of Goethe, Bowring, Tr. by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: "Do I find you again, brave maiden, engaged in assisting
Others so soon, and in giving refreshment to those who may need it?
Tell me why you have come all alone to the spring so far distant,
Whilst the rest are content with the water that's found in the village?
This one, indeed, special virtue possesses, and pleasant to drink is.
Is't for the sake of that sick one you come, whom you saved with such courage?"
Then the good maiden the youth in friendly fashion saluted,
Saying:--"Already my walk to the fountain is fully rewarded,
Since I have found the kind person who gave us so many good presents;
For the sight of a giver, like that of a gift, is refreshing.
Come and see for yourself the persons who tasted your kindness,
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