| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tao Teh King by Lao-tze: not vainly spoken:--all real completion is comprehended under it.
23. 1. Abstaining from speech marks him who is obeying the spontaneity
of his nature. A violent wind does not last for a whole morning; a
sudden rain does not last for the whole day. To whom is it that these
(two) things are owing? To Heaven and Earth. If Heaven and Earth
cannot make such (spasmodic) actings last long, how much less can man!
2. Therefore when one is making the Tao his business, those who are
also pursuing it, agree with him in it, and those who are making the
manifestation of its course their object agree with him in that; while
even those who are failing in both these things agree with him where
they fail.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Wife, et al by Anton Chekhov: that she would soon be writing in her drawing-room and sleeping
in her bedroom, and dining with a cloth on the table? A weight
was lifted from her heart, and she no longer felt angry with the
artist.
"My paints and brushes I will leave with you, Ryabovsky," she
said. "You can bring what's left. . . . Mind, now, don't be lazy
here when I am gone; don't mope, but work. You are such a
splendid fellow, Ryabovsky!"
At ten o'clock Ryabovsky gave her a farewell kiss, in order, as
she thought, to avoid kissing her on the steamer before the
artists, and went with her to the landing-stage. The steamer soon
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Finished by H. Rider Haggard: he called attention to certain anatomical details of the figure.
Finally, with much sense, he pointed out that the Council would
be mad to come to any decision upon such evidence, or to give
faith to prophecies, whereof the truth or falsity could only be
known in the future.
Now a fierce debate broke out, the war party maintaining that the
manifestations were genuine, the peace party that they were a
fraud. In the end, as neither side would give way and as Zikali,
when appealed to, sat silent as a stone, refusing any
explanation, the king said--
"Must we sit here talking, talking, till daylight? There is but
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