| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac: sleep. How far preferable is this existence to that of a country where
every one expends his lungs and strength in politics, without
contributing any more, single-minded, to the progress of affairs than
a grain of sand can make a cloud of dust. Liberty, in those strange
lands, consists in the right to squabble over public concerns, to take
care of oneself, to waste time in patriotic undertakings each more
futile than the last, inasmuch as they all weaken that noble, holy
self-concern which is the parent of all great human achievement. At
Venice, on the contrary, love and its myriad ties, the sweet business
of real happiness, fills up all the time.
In that country, love is so much a matter of course that the Duchess
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz by L. Frank Baum: this part, and few orchards or flowers; so our friends feared they
might encounter more of the savage bears, which they had learned to
dread with all their hearts.
"You'll have to make a dash, Jim," said the Wizard, "and run as fast
as you can go."
"All right," answered the horse; "I'll do my best. But you must
remember I'm old, and my dashing days are past and gone."
All three got into the buggy and Zeb picked up the reins, though Jim
needed no guidance of any sort. The horse was still smarting from the
sharp claws of the invisible bears, and as soon as he was on land and
headed toward the mountain the thought that more of those fearsome
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: Therefore, wherever they can escape [if they were not
restrained by] punishment, they [would] do more against the
Law than before. These, then, are the rude and wicked
[unbridled and secure] men, who do evil wherever they [notice
that they] have the opportunity.
The rest become blind and arrogant [are smitten with arrogance
and blindness], and [insolently] conceive the opinion that
they observe and can observe the Law by their own powers, as
has been said above concerning the scholastic theologians;
thence come the hypocrites and [self-righteous or] false
saints.
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