| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: opportunities of explaining the world and life to her children. She
would point out the ways in which men, really great in themselves, had
risen from obscurity; how they had started from the lowest ranks of
society, with no one to look to but themselves, and achieved noble
destinies.
These readings, and they were not the least useful of Louis' lessons,
took place while little Marie slept on his mother's knee in the quiet
of the summer night, and the Loire reflected the sky; but when they
ended, this adorable woman's sadness always seemed to be doubled; she
would cease to speak, and sit motionless and pensive, and her eyes
would fill with tears.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Professor by Charlotte Bronte: fraction of a farthing: you have paid yourself in taunts!"
Too anxious to remain any longer quiescent, I had no sooner
breakfasted, than I repaired once more to M. Vandenhuten's,
scarcely hoping to find him at home; for a week had barely
elapsed since my first call: but fancying I might be able to
glean information as to the time when his return was expected.
A better result awaited me than I had anticipated, for though
the family were yet at Ostend, M. Vandenhuten had come over to
Brussels on business for the day. He received me with the quiet
kindness of a sincere though not excitable man. I had not sat
five minutes alone with him in his bureau, before I became aware
The Professor |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: actually the same as "living according to life"--how could you do
DIFFERENTLY? Why should you make a principle out of what you
yourselves are, and must be? In reality, however, it is quite
otherwise with you: while you pretend to read with rapture the
canon of your law in Nature, you want something quite the
contrary, you extraordinary stage-players and self-deluders! In
your pride you wish to dictate your morals and ideals to Nature,
to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein; you insist
that it shall be Nature "according to the Stoa," and would like
everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal
glorification and generalism of Stoicism! With all your love for
Beyond Good and Evil |
