| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: of work in this business alone, and at once, for any number of
people who like to engage in it.
Secondly, dressing people--that is to say, urging every one, within
reach of your influence to be always neat and clean, and giving them
means of being so. In so far as they absolutely refuse, you must
give up the effort with respect to them, only taking care that no
children within your sphere of influence shall any more be brought
up with such habits; and that every person who is willing to dress
with propriety shall have encouragement to do so. And the first
absolutely necessary step towards this is the gradual adoption of a
consistent dress for different ranks of persons, so that their rank
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: high upon wheels, but low upon sliders, with lattice bottoms, which,
being cover'd with straw, will retain the mud thrown into them,
and permit the water to drain from it, whereby it will become
much lighter, water making the greatest part of its weight;
these bodies of carts to be plac'd at convenient distances, and the
mud brought to them in wheel-barrows; they remaining where plac'd
till the mud is drain'd, and then horses brought to draw them away."
I have since had doubts of the practicability of the latter part
of this proposal, on account of the narrowness of some streets,
and the difficulty of placing the draining-sleds so as not to encumber
too much the passage; but I am still of opinion that the former,
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: He had known her twenty years, and she was the only woman for whom
he might perhaps have been unfaithful. She was all cleverness and
sympathy and charm; her house had been the very easiest in all the
world and her friendship the very firmest. Without accidents he
had loved her, without accidents every one had loved her: she had
made the passions about her as regular as the moon makes the tides.
She had been also of course far too good for her husband, but he
never suspected it, and in nothing had she been more admirable than
in the exquisite art with which she tried to keep every one else
(keeping Creston was no trouble) from finding it out. Here was a
man to whom she had devoted her life and for whom she had given it
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