| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy: surname. "Even at fifty she is remarkably hand-
some; but in her youth, at eighteen, she was ex-
quisite--tall, slender, graceful, and stately. Yes,
stately is the word; she held herself very erect, by
instinct as it were; and carried her head high, and
that together with her beauty and height gave her
a queenly air in spite of being thin, even bony one
might say. It might indeed have been deterring
had it not been for her smile, which was always
gay and cordial, and for the charming light in
her eyes and for her youthful sweetness."
The Forged Coupon |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Grimm's Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm: Early in the morning came the woman, and took the children out of
their beds. Their piece of bread was given to them, but it was still
smaller than the time before. On the way into the forest Hansel
crumbled his in his pocket, and often stood still and threw a morsel
on the ground. 'Hansel, why do you stop and look round?' said the
father, 'go on.' 'I am looking back at my little pigeon which is
sitting on the roof, and wants to say goodbye to me,' answered Hansel.
'Fool!' said the woman, 'that is not your little pigeon, that is the
morning sun that is shining on the chimney.' Hansel, however little by
little, threw all the crumbs on the path.
The woman led the children still deeper into the forest, where they
Grimm's Fairy Tales |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: reminded of its sacred origin. It is the premium and the feast
which tempt him. He sacrifices not to Ceres and the Terrestrial
Jove, but to the infernal Plutus rather. By avarice and
selfishness, and a grovelling habit, from which none of us is free,
of regarding the soil as property, or the means of acquiring
property chiefly, the landscape is deformed, husbandry is degraded
with us, and the farmer leads the meanest of lives. He knows Nature
but as a robber. Cato says that the profits of agriculture are
particularly pious or just (maximeque pius quaestus), and according
to Varro the old Romans "called the same earth Mother and Ceres, and
thought that they who cultivated it led a pious and useful life, and
Walden |
