| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: Nathan, Madame Raoul
The Muse of the Department
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Government Clerks
A Bachelor's Establishment
Ursule Mirouet
The Imaginary Mistress
A Prince of Bohemia
A Daughter of Eve
Eugenie Grandet |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: tone which foretells the quality of the pain about to come,-- much in the
same way that a particular smell suggests a particular taste. I find that
this mosquito much resembles the creature which Dr. Howard calls Stegomyia
fasciata, or Culex fasciatus: and that its habits are the same as those of
the Stegomyia. For example, it is diurnal rather than nocturnal and becomes
most troublesome in the afternoon. And I have discovered that it comes from
the Buddhist cemetery,-- a very old cemetery,-- in the rear of my garden.
Dr. Howard's book declares that, in order to rid a neighborhood of
mosquitoes, it is only necessary to pour a little petroleum, or kerosene
oil, into the stagnant water where they breed. Once a week the oil should
be used, "at the rate of once ounce for every fifteen square feet of
Kwaidan |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: conviction, but a "delightful conviction," as of a doctrine
"exceeding pleasant, bright, and sweet," appears to us, if
sovereignly anything, sovereignly irrational and mean. Not only
the cruelty, but the paltriness of character of the gods believed
in by earlier centuries also strikes later centuries with
surprise. We shall see examples of it from the annals of
Catholic saintship which makes us rub our Protestant eyes.
Ritual worship in general appears to the modern
transcendentalist, as well as to the ultra-puritanic type of
mind, as if addressed to a deity of an almost absurdly childish
character, taking delight in toy-shop furniture, tapers and
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