| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: Japanese admirer brings an impersonal adoration that combines oddly
the aestheticism of a poet with the asceticism of a recluse. Not
that he worships in secret, however. His passion is too genuine
either to find disguise or seek display. With us, unfortunately,
the love of Nature is apt to be considered a mental extravagance
peculiar to poets, excusable in exact ratio to the ability to give
it expression. For an ordinary mortal to feel a fondness for Mother
Earth is a kind of folly, to be carefully concealed from his
fellows. A sort of shamefacedness prevents him from avowing it,
as a boy at boarding-school hides his homesickness, or a lad his love.
He shrinks from appearing less pachydermatous than the rest.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: class during Wagner's lifetime: one, the greatly gifted Goetz,
who died young; the other, Brahms, whose absolute musical
endowment was as extraordinary as his thought was commonplace.
Wagner had for him the contempt of the original thinker for the
man of second-hand ideas, and of the strenuously dramatic
musician for mere brute musical faculty; but though his contempt
was perhaps deserved by the Triumphlieds, and Schicksalslieds,
and Elegies and Requiems in which Brahms took his brains so
seriously, nobody can listen to Brahms' natural utterance of the
richest absolute music, especially in his chamber compositions,
without rejoicing in his amazing gift. A reaction to absolute
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson: your secret is as safe with me as if I were in Graden Floe. I have
scarce spoken to any one for years; my horse is my only companion,
and even he, poor beast, is not beside me. You see, then, you may
count on me for silence. So tell me the truth, my dear young lady,
are you not in danger?"
"Mr. Northmour says you are an honourable man," she returned, "and
I believe it when I see you. I will tell you so much; you are
right; we are in dreadful, dreadful danger, and you share it by
remaining where you are."
"Ah!" said I; "you have heard of me from Northmour? And he gives
me a good character?"
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