| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: process of reasoning can force it. Yet it transforms the value
of the creature loved as utterly as the sunrise transforms Mont
Blanc from a corpse-like gray to a rosy enchantment; and it sets
the whole world to a new tune for the lover and gives a new issue
to his life. So with fear, with indignation, jealousy, ambition,
worship. If they are there, life changes. And whether they
shall be there or not depends almost always upon non-logical,
often on organic conditions. And as the excited interest which
these passions put into the world is our gift to the world, just
so are the passions themselves GIFTS--gifts to us, from sources
sometimes low and sometimes high; but almost always nonlogical
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Falk by Joseph Conrad: the third day he had revealed himself as a confirmed
opium-smoker, a gambler, a most audacious thief,
and a first-class sprinter. When he departed at the
top of his speed with thirty-two golden sovereigns
of my own hard-earned savings it was the last straw.
I had reserved that money in case my difficulties
came to the worst. Now it was gone I felt as poor
and naked as a fakir. I clung to my ship, for all
the bother she caused me, but what I could not bear
were the long lonely evenings in her cuddy, where
the atmosphere, made smelly by a leaky lamp, was
Falk |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: duties.
[12] B.C. 395; see "Hell." III. iv. 16; Plut. "Marcel." (Clough, ii.
262); Polyb. xii. 20, 7.
Thereupon it was a sight to see the gymnasiums thronged with warriors
going through their exercises, the racecourses crowded with troopers
on prancing steeds, the archers and the javelin men shooting at the
butts. Nay, the whole city in which he lay was transformed into a
spectacle itself, so filled to overflowing was the market-place with
arms and armour of every sort, and horses, all for sale. Here were
coppersmiths and carpenters, ironfounders and cobblers, painters and
decorators--one and all busily engaged in fabricating the implements
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