| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: peal of bells, put him on his guard; he looked at his wife, and read
in her eyes an indescribably anxious and haunted expression.
" 'You are very late,' said she.--Her voice, usually so clear and
sweet, struck him as being slightly husky.
"Monsieur de Merret made no reply, for at this moment Rosalie came in.
This was like a thunder-clap. He walked up and down the room, going
from one window to another at a regular pace, his arms folded.
" 'Have you had bad news, or are you ill?' his wife asked him timidly,
while Rosalie helped her to undress. He made no reply.
" 'You can go, Rosalie,' said Madame de Merret to her maid; 'I can put
in my curl-papers myself.'--She scented disaster at the mere aspect of
La Grande Breteche |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: people, in other matters which are taught, to punish the mal-
performance of a service. So they, the Lacedaemonians, visit penalties
on the boy who is detected thieving as being but a sorry bungler in
the art. So to steal as many cheeses as possible [off the shrine of
Orthia[17]] was a feat to be encouraged; but, at the same moment,
others were enjoined to scourge the thief, which would point a moral
not obscurely, that by pain endured for a brief season a man may earn
the joyous reward of lasting glory.[18] Herein, too, it is plainly
shown that where speed is requisite the sluggard will win for himself
much trouble and scant good.
[17] I.e. "Artemis of the Steep"--a title connecting the goddess with
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: nature's sweet or savage impressions fresh from her own virgin
voluntary and confiding breast, and thereby chiefly, but with some
help from accidental advantages, to learn a bold and nervous lofty
language--that man makes one in a whole nation's census--a mighty
pageant creature, formed for noble tragedies. Nor will it at all
detract from him, dramatically regarded, if either by birth or other
circumstances, he have what seems a half wilful overruling morbidness
at the bottom of his nature. For all men tragically great are made
so through a certain morbidness. Be sure of this, O young ambition,
all mortal greatness is but disease. But, as yet we have not to do
with such an one, but with quite another; and still a man, who, if
Moby Dick |
