| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: than useless, besides being ugly. Which is the best man to deal
with--he who knows nothing about a subject, and, what is
extremely rare, knows that he knows nothing, or he who really
knows something about it, but thinks that he knows all?
My desire for knowledge is intermittent, but my desire to bathe
my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and
constant. The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but
Sympathy with Intelligence. I do not know that this higher
knowledge amounts to anything more definite than a novel and
grand surprise on a sudden revelation of the insufficiency of all
that we called Knowledge before--a discovery that there are more
Walking |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: pass off words in their stead, and actually live upon them as a bird
lives on the seeds of his millet. Pray do not laugh; a word is worth
quite as much as an idea in a land where the ticket on a sack is of
more importance than the contents. Have we not seen libraries working
off the word "picturesque" when literature would have cut the throat
of the word "fantastic"? Fiscal genius has guessed the proper tax on
intellect; it has accurately estimated the profits of advertising; it
has registered a prospectus of the quantity and exact value of the
property, weighing its thought at the intellectual Stamp Office in the
Rue de la Paix.
Having become an article of commerce, intellect and all its products
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: Meantime, the purpose of the Governor, in disturbing the peace of
the town at a period when the slightest commotion might throw the
country into a ferment, was almost the universal subject of
inquiry, and variously explained.
"Satan will strike his master-stroke presently," cried some,
"because he knoweth that his time is short. All our godly pastors
are to be dragged to prison! We shall see them at a Smithfield
fire in King Street!"
Hereupon the people of each parish gathered closer round their
minister, who looked calmly upwards and assumed a more apostolic
dignity, as well befitted a candidate for the highest honor of
Twice Told Tales |
