| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: drained, would not leave very remarkable valleys. They are not like
cups between the hills; for this one, which is so unusually deep for
its area, appears in a vertical section through its centre not
deeper than a shallow plate. Most ponds, emptied, would leave a
meadow no more hollow than we frequently see. William Gilpin, who
is so admirable in all that relates to landscapes, and usually so
correct, standing at the head of Loch Fyne, in Scotland, which he
describes as "a bay of salt water, sixty or seventy fathoms deep,
four miles in breadth," and about fifty miles long, surrounded by
mountains, observes, "If we could have seen it immediately after the
diluvian crash, or whatever convulsion of nature occasioned it,
Walden |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: years in prison: the first, the one Christian poet since Dante;
the other, a man with a soul of that beautiful white Christ which
seems coming out of Russia. And for the last seven or eight
months, in spite of a succession of great troubles reaching me from
the outside world almost without intermission, I have been placed
in direct contact with a new spirit working in this prison through
man and things, that has helped me beyond any possibility of
expression in words: so that while for the first year of my
imprisonment I did nothing else, and can remember doing nothing
else, but wring my hands in impotent despair, and say, 'What an
ending, what an appalling ending!' now I try to say to myself, and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Royalty Restored/London Under Charles II by J. Fitzgerald Molloy: Parliament ordered these noble gentlemen to carry with them a
present of fifty thousand pieces of gold to the king, together
with ten thousand to his brother of York, and five thousand to
his brother of Gloucester. Nor was the City of London backwards
in sending expressions of loyalty and tokens of homage and
devotion; to evince which twenty valiant men and worthy citizens
were despatched with messages of goodwill towards him, and
presents in gold to the amount of twelve thousand pounds.
And presently Admiral Montagu arriving with his fleet upon the
coast of Holland, awaited his majesty near Scheveling; and all
things being in readiness the king with his royal brothers and a
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