| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: blank, and worse than a blank, teeming with torment and misery -
not a mere barren wilderness, but full of thorns and briers - to
find myself deceived, duped, hopeless, my affections trampled upon,
my angel not an angel, and my friend a fiend incarnate - it was
worse than if I had not slept at all.
It was a dull, gloomy morning; the weather had changed like my
prospects, and the rain was pattering against the window. I rose,
nevertheless, and went out; not to look after the farm, though that
would serve as my excuse, but to cool my brain, and regain, if
possible, a sufficient degree of composure to meet the family at
the morning meal without exciting inconvenient remarks. If I got a
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: high cheek-bones.
The nurse rose and bowed. The mother stooped over the first cot,
in which a two-year-old little girl lay peacefully sleeping with
her little mouth open and her long, curly hair tumbled over the
pillow.
"This is Katie," said the mother, straightening the white and
blue crochet coverlet, from under which a little white foot
pushed itself languidly out.
"Is she not pretty? She's only two years old, you know."
"Lovely."
"And this is Vasiuk, as 'grandpapa' calls him. Quite a different
Resurrection |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: worthless, yet it is likewise true that our cares ought to extend beyond
the present, and it is good to omit doing what might perhaps bring some
profit to the living, when we have in view the accomplishment of other
ends that will be of much greater advantage to posterity. And in truth, I
am quite willing it should be known that the little I have hitherto
learned is almost nothing in comparison with that of which I am ignorant,
and to the knowledge of which I do not despair of being able to attain;
for it is much the same with those who gradually discover truth in the
sciences, as with those who when growing rich find less difficulty in
making great acquisitions, than they formerly experienced when poor in
making acquisitions of much smaller amount. Or they may be compared to the
Reason Discourse |
