| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: mind; even put a higher price on it -- took everything but a deed of
it -- took his word for his deed, for I dearly love to talk --
cultivated it, and him too to some extent, I trust, and withdrew
when I had enjoyed it long enough, leaving him to carry it on. This
experience entitled me to be regarded as a sort of real-estate
broker by my friends. Wherever I sat, there I might live, and the
landscape radiated from me accordingly. What is a house but a
sedes, a seat? -- better if a country seat. I discovered many a
site for a house not likely to be soon improved, which some might
have thought too far from the village, but to my eyes the village
was too far from it. Well, there I might live, I said; and there I
Walden |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: as a fellow caveman:
"Well, Joe, how d' you feel about hitting the trail, and getting away from
these darn soft summerites and these women and all?"
"All right, Mr. Babbitt."
"What do you say we go over to Box Car Pond--they tell me the shack there
isn't being used--and camp out?"
"Well, all right, Mr. Babbitt, but it's nearer to Skowtuit Pond, and you can
get just about as good fishing there."
"No, I want to get into the real wilds."
"Well, all right."
"We'll put the old packs on our backs and get into the woods and really hike."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: Whenever I am with them they ask me riddles like that, and I simply lead
a dog's life. Oh, my dear, relations are like drugs,--useful sometimes,
and even pleasant, if taken in small quantities and seldom, but dreadfully
pernicious on the whole, and the truly wise avoid them."
From Minora I have only had one communication since her departure,
in which she thanked me for her pleasant visit, and said she was sending
me a bottle of English embrocation to rub on my bruises after skating;
that it was wonderful stuff, and she was sure I would like it; and that it
cost two marks, and would I send stamps. I pondered long over this.
Was it a parting hit, intended as revenge for our having laughed at her?
Was she personally interested in the sale of embrocation? Or was it merely
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
