| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: table laid and his food prepared, the danger will always be
great--nowadays, however, it is extraordinarily so. Thrown into
the midst of a noisy and plebeian age, with which he does not
like to eat out of the same dish, he may readily perish of hunger
and thirst--or, should he nevertheless finally "fall to," of
sudden nausea.--We have probably all sat at tables to which we
did not belong; and precisely the most spiritual of us, who are
most difficult to nourish, know the dangerous DYSPEPSIA which
originates from a sudden insight and disillusionment about our
food and our messmates--the AFTER-DINNER NAUSEA.
283. If one wishes to praise at all, it is a delicate and at the
Beyond Good and Evil |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Edingburgh Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson: multiplicity embarrasses the eye; and the mind, among so
much, suffers itself to grow absorbed with single points.
You remark a tree in a hedgerow, or follow a cart along a
country road. You turn to the city, and see children,
dwarfed by distance into pigmies, at play about suburban
doorsteps; you have a glimpse upon a thoroughfare where
people are densely moving; you note ridge after ridge of
chimney-stacks running downhill one behind another, and
church spires rising bravely from the sea of roofs. At
one of the innumerable windows, you watch a figure
moving; on one of the multitude of roofs, you watch
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: called on her to put an end to their engagement in the only proper,
the only happy manner.
"And why in the world doesn't she do do?" I asked.
Adelaide had a pause. "She says you know."
Then on my also hesitating she added: "A condition he makes."
"The Coxon Fund?" I panted.
"He has mentioned to her his having told you about it."
"Ah but so little! Do you mean she has accepted the trust?"
"In the most splendid spirit--as a duty about which there can be no
two opinions." To which my friend added: "Of course she's
thinking of Mr. Saltram."
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