| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: perpetual strain of thought? How many, like Pascal, died
prematurely, worn-out by knowledge? Have statistics been gathered
as to the age at which those men who lived the longest began their
studies? Who has ever known, does any one know now, the interior
construction of brains which have been able to sustain a premature
burden of human knowledge? Who suspects that this question
belongs, above all, to the physiology of man?
For my part, I now believe the true general law is to remain a
long time in the vegetative condition of adolescence; and that
those exceptions where strength of organs is produced during
adolescence result usually in the shortening of life. Thus the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: this world, and was either threading the valleys, or crossing the
plains, or climbing the mountain-tops. But lo! men have become the
tools of their tools. The man who independently plucked the fruits
when he was hungry is become a farmer; and he who stood under a tree
for shelter, a housekeeper. We now no longer camp as for a night,
but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven. We have
adopted Christianity merely as an improved method of agri-culture.
We have built for this world a family mansion, and for the next a
family tomb. The best works of art are the expression of man's
struggle to free himself from this condition, but the effect of our
art is merely to make this low state comfortable and that higher
Walden |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: And it inevitably happens that when the Church, the Law, and all
the Talents have made common cause to rob the people, the Church
is far more vitally harmed by that unfaithfulness to itself than
its more mechanical confederates; so that finally they turn on
their discredited ally and rob the Church, with the cheerful
co-operation of Loki, as in France and Italy for instance.
The twin giants come back with their hostage, in whose presence
Godhead blooms again. The gold is ready for them; but now that
the moment has come for parting with Freia the gold
does not seem so tempting; and they are sorely loth to let her
go. Not unless there is gold enough to utterly hide her from
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