| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain: They live in dark and chilly vast tombs--costly enough,
maybe, but without conveniences. To be condemned to live
as the average European family lives would make life
a pretty heavy burden to the average American family.
On the whole, I think that short visits to Europe are
better for us than long ones. The former preserve us from
becoming Europeanized; they keep our pride of country intact,
and at the same time they intensify our affection for our
country and our people; whereas long visits have the effect
of dulling those feelings--at least in the majority
of cases. I think that one who mixes much with Americans
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: the world, come for thy crown! Victor of earth, receive thy diadem!
Thou art of us!"
The virtues of the SERAPH shone forth in all their beauty.
His earliest desire for heaven re-appeared, tender as childhood. The
deeds of his life, like constellations, adorned him with their
brightness. His acts of faith shone like the Jacinth of heaven, the
color of sidereal fires. The pearls of Charity were upon him,--a
chaplet of garnered tears! Love divine surrounded him with roses; and
the whiteness of his Resignation obliterated all earthly trace.
Soon, to the eyes of the Seers, he was but a point of flame, growing
brighter and brighter as its motion was lost in the melodious
Seraphita |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: and tens of thousands of flower-vessels the water in all of these cannot be
renewed every day. It becomes stagnant and populous. The deeper tanks
seldom get dry;-- the rainfall at Tokyo being heavy enough to keep them
partly filled during nine months out of the twelve.
Well, it is in these tanks and flower-vessels that mine enemies are born:
they rise by millions from the water of the dead;-- and, according to
Buddhist doctrine, some of them may be reincarnations of those very dead,
condemned by the error of former lives to the condition of Jiki-ketsu-gaki,
or blood-drinking pretas... Anyhow the malevolence of the Culex fasciatus
would justify the suspicion that some wicked human soul had been compressed
into that wailing speck of a body...
Kwaidan |
