| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: into the questions to which those old-world systems of philosophy had
furnished solutions.
"Epicurus permitted suicide. Was it not the natural outcome of his
system of ethics? The gratification of the senses was to be obtained
at any cost; and when this became impossible, the easiest and best
course was for the animate being to return to the repose of inanimate
nature. Happiness, or the hope of happiness, was the one end for which
man existed, for one who suffered, and who suffered without hope,
death ceased to be an evil, and became a good, and suicide became a
final act of wisdom. This act Epicurus neither blamed nor praised; he
was content to say as he poured a libation to Bacchus, 'As for death,
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe: there.
The choir of the church appears very magnificent; the roof is very
high, and the Gothic work in the arched part is very fine, though
very old; the painting in the windows is admirably good, and easy
to be distinguished by those that understand those things: the
steps ascending to the choir make a very fine show, having the
statues of King James and his son King Charles, in copper, finely
cast; the first on the right hand, and the other on the left, as
you go up to the choir.
The choir is said to be the longest in England; and as the number
of prebendaries, canons, &c., are many, it required such a length.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Wife, et al by Anton Chekhov: me to go to him. 'Come along, come along,' he persisted, and
nothing else would satisfy him. 'Very well, let us go,' I said.
And, so we set off. It was in the evening; there was snow
falling. Towards night we were getting near his place, and
suddenly from the wood came 'bang!' and another time 'bang!' 'Oh,
damn it all!' . . . I jumped out of the sledge, and I saw in the
darkness a man running up to me, knee-deep in the snow. I put my
arm round his shoulder, like this, and knocked the gun out of his
hand. Then another one turned up; I fetched him a knock on the
back of his head so that he grunted and flopped with his nose in
the snow. I was a sturdy chap then, my fist was heavy; I disposed
|
