| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: lately dissected one strange fish, and he thus described it to me:
"This fish was almost a yard broad, and twice that length; his mouth
wide enough to receive, or take into it, the head of a man; his stomach,
seven or eight inches broad. He is of a slow motion; and usually lies or
lurks close in the mud; and has a moveable string on his head, about a
span or near unto a quarter of a yard long; by the moving of which,
which is his natural bait, when he lies close and unseen in the mud, he
draws other smaller fish so close to him, that he can suck them into his
mouth, and so devours and digests them."
And, scholar, do not wonder at this; for besides the credit of the relator,
you are to note, many of these, and fishes which are of the like and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: closely before those sentiments could be detected. The canon's
habitual condition was perfect calmness, and his eyelids were usually
lowered over his orange-colored eyes, which could, however, give clear
and piercing glances when he liked. Reddish hair added to the gloomy
effect of this countenance, which was always obscured by the veil
which deep meditation drew across its features. Many persons at first
sight thought him absorbed in high and earnest ambitions; but those
who claimed to know him better denied that impression, insisting that
he was only stupidly dull under Mademoiselle Gamard's despotism, or
else worn out by too much fasting. He seldom spoke, and never laughed.
When it did so happen that he felt agreeably moved, a feeble smile
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: seen, at the bottom of it, had it existed--it did not--and how I happen to
be so lewd myself, particularly a little before the vernal and autumnal
equinoxes--Heaven above knows--My mother--madam--was so at no time, either
by nature, by institution, or example.
A temperate current of blood ran orderly through her veins in all months of
the year, and in all critical moments both of the day and night alike; nor
did she superinduce the least heat into her humours from the manual
effervescencies of devotional tracts, which having little or no meaning in
them, nature is oft-times obliged to find one--And as for my father's
example! 'twas so far from being either aiding or abetting thereunto, that
'twas the whole business of his life, to keep all fancies of that kind out
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