| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: enthusiasm, he was already dissatisfied with it.
The new life was no happier than the old. He was weary of
vigils and fasts, weary of studies and penances, weary of
prayers and sermons. He felt like a slave in a treadmill. He
knew that he must go on. His honour, his conscience, his
sense of duty, bound him. He could not go back to the old
careless pagan life again; for something had happened within
him which made a return impossible. Doubtless he had found
the true religion, but he had found it only as a task and a
burden; its joy and peace had slipped away from him.
He felt disillusioned and robbed. He sat beside his hard
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Koran: until they increased and said, 'Distress and joy both touched our
fathers;' then we overtook them suddenly ere they could perceive.- Had
the people of the town but believed and feared, we would have opened
up for them blessings from the heavens and from the earth; but they
said it was a lie, so we overtook them for that which they had earned.
Were the people of these cities then secure that our violence
would not come on them by night, while they slept? were the people
of these cities secure that our violence would not come on them in the
morning whilst they played? were they secure from the craft of God.?
none feel secure from the craft of God except a people that shall
lose.
The Koran |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Toqueville: a wholesome egotism, marked out by four sunk fences and a
quickset hedge. But if an American were condemned to confine his
activity to his own affairs, he would be robbed of one half of
his existence; he would feel an immense void in the life which he
is accustomed to lead, and his wretchedness would be unbearable.
*d I am persuaded that, if ever a despotic government is
established in America, it will find it more difficult to
surmount the habits which free institutions have engendered than
to conquer the attachment of the citizens to freedom.
[Footnote d: The same remark was made at Rome under the first
Caesars. Montesquieu somewhere alludes to the excessive
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