| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: the courage of youth sometimes flags. We are still serving our
apprenticeship to life; we are new to the business, a kind of faint-
heartedness overpowers us, and leaves us in an almost dazed condition
of mind. We feel that we are helpless aliens in a strange country. At
all ages we shrink back involuntarily from the unknown. And a young
man is very much like the soldier who will walk up to the cannon's
mouth, and is put to flight by a ghost. He hesitates among the maxims
of the world. The rules of attack and of self-defence are alike
unknown to him; he can neither give nor take; he is attracted by
women, and stands in awe of them; his very good qualities tell against
him, he is all generosity and modesty, and completely innocent of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbot: because I could not but compare what I saw in Two Dimensions
with what it really was if seen in Three, and could hardly refrain
from making my comparisons aloud. I neglected my clients
and my own business to give myself to the contemplation
of the mysteries which I had once beheld, yet which I could impart
to no one, and found daily more difficult to reproduce even before
my own mental vision.
One day, about eleven months after my return from Spaceland,
I tried to see a Cube with my eye closed, but failed;
and though I succeeded afterwards, I was not then quite certain
(nor have I been ever afterwards) that I had exactly realized
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Poems by Bronte Sisters: His wife and children soon.
The hand that lifts the latchet, holds
A candle to his sight,
And Gilbert, on the step, beholds
A woman, clad in white.
Lo! water from her dripping dress
Runs on the streaming floor;
From every dark and clinging tress
The drops incessant pour.
There's none but her to welcome him;
She holds the candle high,
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