| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tao Teh King by Lao-tze: them.
2. There is an originating and all-comprehending (principle) in my
words, and an authoritative law for the things (which I enforce). It
is because they do not know these, that men do not know me.
3. They who know me are few, and I am on that account (the more) to be
prized. It is thus that the sage wears (a poor garb of) hair cloth,
while he carries his (signet of) jade in his bosom.
71. 1. To know and yet (think) we do not know is the highest
(attainment); not to know (and yet think) we do know is a disease.
2. It is simply by being pained at (the thought of) having this
disease that we are preserved from it. The sage has not the disease.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Moon-Face and Other Stories by Jack London: 'a great big puddle flewed up and hit me.'"
He stopped and waited for me to join him in his infernal glee.
"I don't see any laugh in it," I said shortly, and I know my face went sour.
He regarded me with wonderment, and then came the damnable light, glowing and
spreading, as I have described it, till his face shone soft and warm, like the
summer moon, and then the laugh--"Ha! ha! That's funny! You don't see it, eh?
He! he! Ho! ho! ho! He doesn't see it! Why, look here. You know a puddle--"
But I turned on my heel and left him. That was the last. I could stand it no
longer. The thing must end right there, I thought, curse him! The earth should
be quit of him. And as I went over the hill, I could hear his monstrous laugh
reverberating against the sky.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: let him read on; otherwise, he should lay aside this book at once. If
he has never buried a good old relative, infirm and poor, he will not
understand these pages, which to some will seem redolent of musk, to
others as colorless and virtuous as those of Florian. In short, the
reader must have known the luxury of tears, must have felt the silent
pangs of a passing memory, the vision of a dear yet far-off Shade,--
memories which bring regret for all that earth has swallowed up, with
smiles for vanished joys.
And now, believe that the writer would not, for the wealth of England,
steal from poesy a single lie with which to embellish this narrative.
The following is a true history, on which you may safely spend the
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