| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: revival, a regalvanizing of its old-time energy, at the hands of
some of the native archaeologists. Its sacred mirror, held up to
Nature, has been burnished anew. Formerly this body of belief was
the national faith, the Mikado, the direct descendant of the early
gods, being its head on earth. His reinstatement to temporal power
formed a very fitting first step toward reinvesting the cult with
its former prestige; a curious instance, indeed, of a religious
revival due to archaeological, not to religious zeal.
This cult is the mythological inheritance of the whole eastern
seaboard of Asia, from Siam to Kamtchatka. In Japan it is called
Shintoism. The word "Shinto" means literally "the way of the gods,"
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: Supper never tasted better. "One more night in the old camp,"
said Luke as he rolled himself in the blanket and dropped
asleep in a moment.
The sun shone in at the door and woke him. "I must have
a trout for breakfast," he cried, "there's one waiting for me
at the mouth of Alder Brook, I suppose." So he caught up his
rod from behind the door, and got into the canoe and paddled
up the River of Rocks. There was the broad, dark pool, like a
little lake, with a rapid running in at the head, and close
beside the rapid, the mouth of the brook. He sent his fly out by
the edge of the alders. There was a huge swirl on the water, and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling: heartless Government transfers men from one end of the Empire to the
other. You can never be sure of getting rid of a friend or an enemy
till he or she dies. There was a case once--but that's another
story.
Haggert's Department ordered him up from Dindigul to the Frontier at
two days' notice, and he went through, losing money at every step,
from Dindigul to his station. He dropped Mrs. Haggert at Lucknow,
to stay with some friends there, to take part in a big ball at the
Chutter Munzil, and to come on when he had made the new home a
little comfortable. Lucknow was Hannasyde's station, and Mrs.
Haggert stayed a week there. Hannasyde went to meet her. And the
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