| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: which the Prince, having long considered him as one whose
intellects were exhausted, was not very willing to afford. "Why,"
said he, "does this man thus intrude upon me? Shall I never be
suffered to forget these lectures, which pleased only while they
were new, and to become new again must be forgotten?" He then
walked into the wood, and composed himself to his usual
meditations; when, before his thoughts had taken any settled form,
he perceived his pursuer at his side, and was at first prompted by
his impatience to go hastily away; but being unwilling to offend a
man whom he had once reverenced and still loved, he invited him to
sit down with him on the bank.
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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: in relation to the Whole, which you are unable to perceive. Though
Nature is like unto herself in the organizing force or in her
principles which are infinite, she is not so in her finite effects.
Thus you will never find in Nature two objects identically alike. In
the Natural Order two and two never make four; to do so, four exactly
similar units must be had, and you know how impossible it is to find
two leaves alike on the same tree, or two trees alike of the same
species. This axiom of your numeration, false in visible nature, is
equally false in the invisible universe of your abstractions, where
the same variance takes place in your ideas, which are the things of
the visible world extended by means of their relations; so that the
Seraphita |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar: the shrines which serve as the Way of the Cross never seemed so
artistic; the baby graves, even, seemed cheerful.
Theophile called Sunday. Manuela's heart leaped. He had been
spending his Sundays with Claralie. His stay was short and he
was plainly bored. But Manuela knelt to thank the good St.
Rocque that night, and fondled the charm about her slim waist.
There came a box of bonbons during the week, with a decorative
card all roses and fringe, from Theophile; but being a Creole,
and therefore superstitiously careful, and having been reared by
a wise and experienced maman to mistrust the gifts of a recreant
lover, Manuela quietly thrust bonbons, box, and card into the
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories |
